cellulite

Etymology

It is borrowed from French cellulite,^[2][3][4][5] a transferred use of the French word for inflammation of the cellular connective tissue (1833 or earlier),^[2][6] formed from cellule (“small cell”) and -ite, the suffix of diseases, from New Latin -ītis.^[2][5][4] The French sense of fat deposits is recorded by 1949; they were so called because they were once thought to come from such an inflammation.^[2] Cellule is from Latin cellula (“little cell”), a diminutive of cella,^[3][4] the source of cell.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Deposits of fat under the skin that cause dimpling: 1968, in the American edition of Vogue.^[2][3][4] The French word had appeared in an English text in 1955, as la cellulite, a complaint for which French women underwent spa treatment.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In English the word was taken with -ite read as the ordinary English suffix rather than as -itis,^[6] and it never had the medical sense of the French word, for which English has cellulitis.^[2][6] Etymonline notes that it appeared mainly in fashion magazines and advertisements for beauty treatments,^[3] and Collins describes it as a name sometimes given to fat alleged to resist dieting.^[7] The OED notes that in French, too, the fat sense is now only non-technical.^[2]

Timeline

• 1968 – deposits of fat under the skin causing dimpling.^[2][3][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. Subcutaneous fat held in connective tissue, as on the thighs, hips and buttocks, giving the skin a dimpled, puckered look.^[4][2][8][7]

Related words

• cellulitis
• cell
• cellule

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press