caecum

Forms

• cecum (US)

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin caecum,^[2][3][4] short for intestīnum caecum (“blind gut”),^[2][3][5][6] the neuter of caecus (“blind, hidden”).^[2][3][4] Barnhart calls the phrase New Latin,^[7] and Klein gives Medieval Latin colon caecum.^[4] It translates the Greek expression for "blind gut", made of Ancient Greek τυφλός (tuphlós, “blind”) and ἔντερον (énteron, “gut”),^[5][6][8][9] and Klein traces the medical term to Aristotle's description of a blind part of the intestine in “De partibus animalium”.^[4] The Latin adjective comes from Proto-Italic *kaiko- and Proto-Indo-European *kehi-ko- (“one-eyed”),^[3] and is cognate with Old Irish cáech (“one-eyed”) and Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌹𐌷𐍃 (haihs, “one-eyed, blind”).^[3][7][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The blind gut, the first part of the large intestine: 1721, in Bailey's dictionary.^[2][7][3] Hoad and Collins agree on the 18th century, and Dictionary.com gives 1715–25,^[5][6][10] but the American Heritage Dictionary calls the word Middle English, and the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English date it to late Middle English.^[11][8][9]

Semantic evolution

The gut was called "blind" because it is closed at one end, prolonged behind the opening of the small intestine into a cul-de-sac.^[2][7][3] Weekley compares rectum and duodenum.^[12] From the gut the word was extended by 1753 to any tube or sac with one closed end,^[2][8] such as the intestinal caeca, two long blind tubes joined to the upper part of the large intestine.^[2] The adjective caecal follows in the early 19th century, and caecitis and caecostomy in the mid and late 19th.^[8]

Timeline

• 1721 – the blind gut, in Bailey's dictionary.^[2][7][3]
• 1753 – any tube with one end closed, in the supplement to Chambers's Cyclopædia.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (anatomy) The pouch at the beginning of the large intestine, closed at one end and bearing the vermiform appendix; the blind gut.^{[6][11][8][2]}
2. (anatomy) Any sac or tube that ends blindly, with one opening only.^{[6][11][8][2]}

Word family

• caecal
• caecally
• caecitis
• caecostomy

Related words

• cecity
• pichiciago

Usage notes

Cecum is the American spelling,^[6][8] and the American Heritage Dictionary enters the word under it, with caecum as a variant.^[11] The plural is caeca, American ceca.^[11][6]

References

1. ^ 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 e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
7. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray