constipation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English constipacioun,^[2][3] borrowed from Middle French constipation or directly borrowed from Late Latin cōnstīpātiō (“a crowding together”),^[4][5][6][3] which in Medieval Latin also meant costiveness.^[6] The Latin noun is formed from the past participle cōnstīpātus of cōnstīpō (“to press or crowd together”),^[7][8][5] from com- (“together”) and stīpō (“to cram, pack, compress”),^[7] which Etymonline relates to stiff.^[7] The same Latin participle became Old French costivé, the source of costive.^[9][7] The verb constipate is partly a back-formation from the noun.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

About 1400, in the English translation of Lanfranc's surgery, in the phrase constipacioun of þe wombe.^[2][7][4] The Middle English Dictionary and Etymonline read it as the bowel complaint,^[2][7] while the OED files this first record under an obsolete sense, the contraction or constriction of tissues or veins.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Ayto notes that the Latin word first meant the condition of being closely packed, and that the English word was used in that literal sense only briefly, in the 17th and 18th centuries;^[9] the OED dates it from 1603, in Holland's Plutarch, to 1713.^[4] Johnson (1755) gave this sense first, "the act of crouding any thing into less room; condensation", quoting Bacon.^[10] As a medical term it first meant the constriction of organs or vessels, in use until about 1660,^[4][9] and since the mid-16th century the obstruction of the bowels,^[9][6] recorded in 1550 in the Complaynt of Scotland.^[4] A figurative use, for a lack of ease or effect, dates from the early 19th century in the Shorter Oxford,^[6] or 1917, in a letter of Aldous Huxley, in the OED.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – constipacioun, in a medical text, of the bowels or of tissues.^[2][4]
• c. 1550 – costiveness, obstruction of the bowels.^[4]
• 1603 – compression, condensation (obsolete by 1713).^[4]
• 1917 – figurative.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. Infrequent or difficult emptying of the bowels, with hard, dry faeces.^[11][5][4]
2. A figurative state of being blocked or sluggish.^[4][6]
3. (obsolete, c. 1400–1660) Contraction or constriction of the body's tissues or vessels.^[4][5][6]
4. (obsolete, 1603–1713) Compression or condensation of matter.^[4][5][10]

Related words

• constipate
• costive
• stiff

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins