Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Phlebitis
/flɪˈbaɪtɪs/noun
Inflammation of a vein wall, typically causing a red, tender cord under the skin.
The Greek roots
φλέψ
phléps
vein
-ῖτις
-îtis
inflammation of
Literally: “vein inflammation”
The story of the word
The stem is φλεβ-, seen in the genitive φλεβός, which is why English has phlebotomy and not phlepsotomy. The suffix -ῖτις was originally a feminine adjective agreeing with an understood νόσος, disease, so every -itis in medicine is grammatically a leftover phrase with its noun missing. Bloodletting kept phlebotomy in the language for centuries before laboratories gave the word a second life.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
phlebotomythrombophlebitisphlebology
In a sentence
The cannula site developed phlebitis and had to be resited.