Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Sphincter
/ˈsfɪŋktər/noun
A ring of muscle that closes a passage in the body by contracting.
The Greek roots
σφιγκτήρ
sphinktḗr
that which binds tight
σφίγγω
sphíngō
to squeeze, bind
Literally: “the tightener”
The story of the word
Galen used σφιγκτήρ for any muscle that shuts a tube by tightening around it, and the body has dozens, from the iris of the eye to the pylorus at the stomach's exit. The Sphinx is generally taken as the same verb, the strangler who throttled travellers who failed her riddle, although her name may have arrived in Greek from Egypt and been reshaped afterwards to fit a Greek etymology. English borrowed sphincter in the sixteenth century straight out of medical Latin.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
sphinxsphingosine
In a sentence
Reflux is usually a sphincter that no longer closes properly, not too much acid.