Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Placenta
/pləˈsɛntə/noun
The organ that develops in the womb to feed and oxygenate the growing fetus.
The Greek roots
πλάξ
pláx
flat plate
πλακόεις
plakóeis
flat, cake-like
Literally: “flat cake”
The story of the word
Realdo Colombo named the organ in 1559 placenta uterina, the uterine cake, because that is what it looks like laid flat. Latin placenta was a genuine cake, a Roman flat pastry, and Rome had borrowed the name from Greek πλακόεντα, from πλάξ, a flat slab. So one of the more consequential organs in human biology carries a baker's word, twice removed.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Modern Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1670s
Same family
placentalplacoid
In a sentence
The placenta was delivered ten minutes later and weighed almost half a kilo.