aorta

Etymology

It is borrowed from New Latin aorta,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} which Etymonline and the Random House text call medieval and the OED medieval or modern,^[7][8][9] from Ancient Greek ἀορτή (aortḗ, “the great artery”),^{[9][3][10][11]} literally "that which is hung" (compare ἀορτήρ (aortḗr, “a hanger, a strap”)),^[9] from ἀείρω (aeírō, “to raise, lift”).^{[9][6][5][12]} Barnhart allows some influence from French aorte, which it dates to 1546.^[13] Barnhart, following Frisk and Boisacq, instead takes the original sense as "that which is attached", from συναείρω (sunaeírō, “to tie or harness together”), and compares Latvian veŕu and Albanian vjer (“to hang up”), from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to attach”).^[13] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also says "perhaps akin" to the Albanian verb.^[2] Beekes separates a verb "to raise" from a verb "to bind together" and leaves open whether they were originally one; he reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *h₂uer- but says that "no cognates are known".^[14][7] Ayto instead speaks of a root Proto-Indo-European *ar- (“to lift”).^[12] Klein and Etymonline connect the word with the second element of meteor,^[5][7] and Ayto with artery.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The great artery of the body: 1543, in B. Traheron's glossary to a translation of Vigo's surgery, The greatest arterie of all, called aorta.^[9][2] Barnhart dates the word to 1578,^[13] the Random House text to 1570–80,^[8] and Etymonline to the 1590s.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The English word came with its anatomical sense already fixed; the change had happened in Greek.^[9] Hippocrates used the plural for the bronchi, the branches of the windpipe, and Aristotle applied it to the great artery of the heart.^{[9][13][10][11]} Ayto suggests that the ancients thought of the heart as hung from the vessel, as if from a strap.^[12] Johnson (1755) defined it as "the great artery which rises immediately out of the left ventricle of the heart".^[15] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also records a use for a large dorsal blood vessel in invertebrates.^[2]

Timeline

• 1543 – the great artery from the left ventricle of the heart, in Traheron's The greatest arterie of all, called aorta.^[9][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The main artery of the body in vertebrates, which carries blood from the left ventricle of the heart to all parts except the lungs (plural aortas or aortae).^{[4][8][16][2]}
2. A large dorsal blood vessel in various invertebrates, especially the front extension of the heart in insects and other arthropods.^[2]

Word family

• aortal
• aortic
• aortography
• aortitis

Related words

• artery
• meteor

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
5. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ 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
13. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
14. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ Stedman's Medical Dictionary, Baltimore: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins