Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Neuritis
/njʊəˈraɪtɪs/noun
Inflammation of a peripheral nerve, causing pain, numbness or loss of function in the area it serves.
The Greek roots
νεῦρον
neûron
sinew, nerve
-ῖτις
-îtis
inflammation
Literally: “inflammation of a nerve”
The story of the word
Neuron meant sinew or bowstring before it meant nerve; Greek anatomy did not separate the two, and the shift happened only when Herophilus traced nerves to the brain in the third century BC. Optic neuritis, the sudden loss of vision in one eye, is often the first sign of multiple sclerosis. The cell called a neuron got the name much later, from Waldeyer in 1891.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
neuronneurologyneuralgianeurosis
In a sentence
Optic neuritis sent her to an ophthalmologist and then to a neurologist.
Vestibular neuritis leaves the world spinning for days.