Sclera

The story of the word

The sclera is named for its texture rather than its colour: σκληρός meant hard, dry and unyielding, and the layer is dense collagen holding the eyeball's shape. Anatomists worked from the older phrase sclerotic coat and clipped the noun out of it in the nineteenth century. The same root runs through sclerosis, hardening of tissue, and through multiple sclerosis, named by Charcot for the several hardened patches he found in the nervous system. Humans are unusual in showing so much white sclera, which makes the direction of a gaze readable across a room.

How it travelled

Ancient Greek → Modern Latin → English

First recorded

late 19th century