Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Pneumonia
/nuːˈmoʊnjə/noun
Inflammation of the lungs, usually from infection, filling the air sacs with fluid.
The Greek roots
πνεύμων
pneúmōn
lung
Literally: “lung condition”
Follow a root:πνεύμων1 word
The story of the word
The older Greek word for lung was πλεύμων, and it shifted to πνεύμων under the pull of πνεῦμα, breath. That single letter is why English opens the word with a p nobody pronounces. Latin had already taken pulmo from the older form, so pulmonary and pneumonia name the same organ twice over. William Osler called the disease the captain of the men of death, and until antibiotics it generally was.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
Same family
pneumaticpneumothoraxdyspnea
In a sentence
She went in with a cracked rib and came home with pneumonia.