Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Neuralgia
/njʊˈrældʒə/noun
Sharp, often stabbing pain running along the course of a nerve, without damage to the tissue the nerve supplies.
The Greek roots
νεῦρον
neûron
nerve, sinew
ἄλγος
álgos
pain
Literally: “nerve pain”
The story of the word
French physicians coined névralgie in the early nineteenth century for pain that followed a nerve's path rather than an injury, and English took it straight over. ἄλγος is the pain in analgesic, something that takes the pain away, and in nostalgia, coined in 1688 by a Swiss medical student for the ache of homecoming. Trigeminal neuralgia was once called tic douloureux, a name that describes the wince rather than the cause.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
analgesicnostalgianeuronmyalgia
In a sentence
Cold air on that side of his jaw sets off the neuralgia within seconds.