Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Prognosis
/prɒɡˈnoʊsɪs/noun
A forecast of how a disease will run.
The Greek roots
πρό
pró
before, in advance
γνῶσις
gnôsis
knowing, knowledge
Literally: “foreknowledge”
The story of the word
One of the Hippocratic treatises is called Prognostikon, and its argument is practical: a physician who can tell the patient what will happen next earns the trust to treat him. Diagnosis names what is wrong now, prognosis says what comes after. Both share the root of gnosis, which also gave the Gnostics their name.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
diagnosisgnosticagnosticphysiognomy
In a sentence
The surgery went well and her prognosis is good.
He asked for the prognosis in plain numbers, not adjectives.