Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Tracheotomy
/ˌtreɪkiˈɒtəmi/noun
A surgical incision into the windpipe to open an airway below an obstruction.
The Greek roots
τραχεῖα
trakheîa
rough (one)
τομή
tomḗ
a cutting
Literally: “cutting the rough one”
The story of the word
Greek doctors called the windpipe the ἀρτηρία τραχεῖα, the rough vessel, ridged as it is by rings of cartilage, and set it against the smooth arteries. English kept only the adjective, so the trachea is literally the rough one. A tracheotomy cuts into it; a tracheostomy goes further and leaves a mouth, στόμα, held open.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Medieval Latin → English
- First recorded
- 18th century
Same family
tracheaanatomylobotomyepitome
In a sentence
An emergency tracheotomy bought the child four minutes.
The scar from the tracheotomy had faded to a white line.