Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Thorax
/ˈθɔræks/noun
The part of the body between the neck and the abdomen.
The Greek roots
θώραξ
thṓrax
breastplate, chest
Literally: “breastplate”
Follow a root:θώραξ1 word
The story of the word
In Homer a θώραξ is armour, the bronze corslet a warrior straps on before fighting, and the body part took its name from the thing that covered it. Greek doctors then used it anatomically, Latin took it whole, and English had it as a medical term by the late 14th century. Entomologists later gave the name to the middle segment of an insect, the section that carries the legs and wings.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- late 14th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
thoracicthoracotomypneumothorax
In a sentence
The X-ray showed fluid at the base of the thorax.
In a wasp the thorax is the engine room and nothing else.