atrophy

Etymology

It is borrowed from French atrophie,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} perhaps also directly borrowed from Late Latin atrophia,^[7][8][9] from Ancient Greek ἀτροφία (atrophía, “lack of food, wasting away”),^[2][3][8] an abstract noun from ἄτροφος (átrophos, “ill-fed, not nourished”).^[2][3][9] This is formed from the privative prefix ἀ- (a-, “not, without”) and τροφή (trophḗ, “food, nourishment”),^[2][8][5] from τρέφω (tréphō, “to nourish, fatten, curdle”).^[4][10][11] Merriam-Webster relates the Greek verb to θρέμμα (thrémma, “nursling”) and θρόμβος (thrómbos, “clot, curd”).^[10] The French verb atrophier lies behind the participle atrophied (1597),^[9][2] and the Oxford dictionaries trace the English verb partly to it.^[7][12] Etymonline, the OED and Barnhart take the verb as a conversion of the noun.^[3][2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A wasting away of the body, or of a part of it, through poor nourishment: 1620, in T. Venner's Via Recta.^[2][4] Merriam-Webster dates the noun to 1601,^[10] Dictionary.com to 1590–1600, through an earlier spelling atrophie,^[13] and Etymonline to the 1610s;^[3] the participle atrophied is recorded from 1597.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The word began as a medical term for emaciation from want of nourishment.^[7][2] Johnson (1755) defined it as a disease in which food does not nourish the body, and quoted Milton's "pining atrophy" from Paradise Lost.^[14] Later medicine used it for the wasting of an organ or tissue from any cause,^[7] and Merriam-Webster now defines it as a decrease in size of a part after full growth, from disuse, old age, injury or disease, or as a halt in a part's development.^[10] A figurative use, a decline or weakening, is recorded from 1653, in a dedication by Bishop J. Taylor.^[2] The verb is dated to 1808 by Etymonline;^[3] the OED's first quotations, transitive and intransitive, are from 1865, J. S. Mill's "Organs are strengthened by exercise and atrophied by disuse" among them,^[2][7][4] and Merriam-Webster dates the intransitive verb to 1863.^[10]

Timeline

• 1620 – a wasting away of the body through lack of nourishment.^[2][4]
• 1653 – figurative, a decline or weakening.^[2]
• 1808 – verb, to waste away.^[3] The OED's first records, transitive (to affect with atrophy) and intransitive (to become atrophied), are from 1865.^[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A wasting away or decrease in size of an organ or tissue, from disease, poor nourishment, injury, old age or disuse: muscular atrophy.^[10][15][2]
2. A failure of a part to grow to its normal size.^[15][10]
3. Any gradual decline or degeneration, especially through lack of use: the atrophy of local trade.^[15][2]

Verb

1. To waste away or shrink, or to decline from disuse: His leg muscles atrophied during the months in plaster.^[10][15][2]
2. To cause to waste away.^[15][2][10]

Word family

• atrophic

Related words

• atrophied
• trophic
• -trophy
• hypertrophy
• dystrophy
• thrombus

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
7. ^ a b c d e 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 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins