abscess

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin abscessus (“a going away; in medicine, a collection of pus”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} formed from the stem of abscēdō (“to go away, withdraw, form an abscess”),^[2][6][4] which is made up of abs- (“away”) and cēdō (“to go”),^[3][6][7] from Proto-Indo-European *ked- (“to go, yield”).^[5] The medical sense of the Latin noun is perhaps (OED), possibly (American Heritage Dictionary) or probably (Merriam-Webster Unabridged) a rendering of Ancient Greek ἀπόστημα (apóstēma, “distance, abscess”),^[2][4][6] the source of aposteme,^[2][6] from ἀφίστημι (aphístēmi, “to withdraw”),^[4] made up of ἀπό (apó, “away”) and ἵστημι (hístēmi, “to stand”).^[8] Hoad and Ayto take the English word through French abcès,^[9][8] which the OED, in its revised entry, only compares, dating its medical use to 1537.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A collection of pus: 1574, in T. Newton's translation of Gratarolo's Direction for Health,^[2][6] where the OED also has an obsolete sense, the forming of such a lesion.^[2] Dictionary.com dates the word to 1535–45,^[10] and the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English to the mid 16th century,^[7][11] while Etymonline has the 1610s^[5] and Barnhart 1615.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The Latin word's sense of "going away" reflects a medical theory: harmful bodily humours were thought to leave the body through the pus that gathered in the swelling.^[8][5][12] Ayto thinks the Latin use may be Celsus's own rendering of the Greek term,^[8] and Etymonline and the OED both cite him for it.^[5][2] Johnson (1755) gave the word as a surgical term for a morbid cavity or a swelling full of matter, and his quotation from Harvey still pairs it with apostem.^[13] The modern definitions speak of a local collection of pus, usually from bacterial infection,^[2][12] and the adjective abscessed followed in the mid 19th century.^[7]

Timeline

• 1574 – a collection of pus, also the forming of one.^[2][6][14] Etymonline dates the word to the 1610s,^[5] Barnhart to 1615.^[3]
• mid 19th century – the adjective abscessed.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A localized collection of pus, usually caused by bacteria and surrounded by inflamed tissue: The dentist drained an abscess under her molar.^{[12][6][4][2]}
2. (pathology) A cavity formed when tissue breaks down within a solid part of the body.^[15][1]

Verb

1. To form an abscess.^[12][4]

Word family

• abscessed

Related words

• cede
• accede
• recede
• aposteme

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
15. ^ Stedman's Medical Dictionary, Baltimore: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins