Sport & ContestGreek → English
Somatotype
/soʊˈmætətaɪp/noun
A classification of human physique by the relative proportions of fat, muscle and linearity in the build.
The Greek roots
σῶμα
sôma
body
τύπος
týpos
impression, stamp, type
Literally: “body stamp”
The story of the word
William Sheldon published his scheme in 1940 and named its three components after the embryo's three germ layers. Every body was to be scored on all three at once, from one to seven, so nobody was purely one thing. His further claim, that build predicts temperament, did not survive scrutiny; the vocabulary moved into gyms and stayed.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1940
Same family
ectomorphpsychosomaticchromosomestereotype
In a sentence
Rowing squads have a narrow somatotype range for obvious mechanical reasons.
He talks about his somatotype the way other people talk about their star sign.