Etymologically
Log in

coronary

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 31 October 2026 at 16:09. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈkɒɹən(ə)ɹi/[1]
  • US: /ˈkɔɹənɛɹi/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin corōnārius (“of or belonging to a crown or wreath”),[2][3][4][5] formed from corōna (“garland, wreath, crown”) with -ārius.[4][6] Corōna is the source of crown and coronation.[3][5][7] Barnhart thinks it came possibly also through Middle French coronaire,[8] and the OED compares the French word, recorded from the 13th century.[2] Etymonline derives the Latin noun from a suffixed form of Proto-Indo-European *sker- (“to turn, bend”).[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Suitable for garlands or wreaths: 1610, in John Guillim's Display of Heraldrie;[2][8] Evelyn's coronary garden was a flower garden, and a coronary was a plant grown for garlands.[2][8] Etymonline dates the sense to about 1600; it was obsolete by the end of the 17th century.[3][2]

Semantic evolution

From 1646, in Sir Thomas Browne, the adjective meant resembling or forming a crown;[2][3] Johnson (1755) quoted Browne's "coronary spots upon the crown" of the basilisk.[9] In the later 17th century anatomists applied it to vessels, nerves and ligaments that encircle another part like a crown,[7][10] and above all to the blood vessels that surround the heart and feed its muscle;[3][7] Barnhart finds this use by 1679, Etymonline in the 1670s and the OED in 1686.[8][3][2] Johnson explained that the arteries were imagined to encircle the heart like a garland.[9] Coronary artery is recorded from 1741,[3] and the word gradually came to mean simply "of the heart".[7][4] It was also used for the crown of a tooth (1823) and a bone in a horse's foot (1843), and as coronary gold for the gold collected for a victorious Roman general.[2][11] The noun, short for coronary artery and later for coronary thrombosis, is recorded from 1893;[2][4] Etymonline dates the sense "heart attack" to 1955, and Ayto places it after the Second World War.[3][7]

Timeline

  • c. 1600 – suitable for garlands.[3]
  • 1610 – suitable for garlands; a plant for garlands (obsolete by 1696).[2][8][4]
  • 1646 – resembling or forming a crown.[2]
  • 1679 – of blood vessels that encircle a part, such as the heart.[8]
  • 1686 – anatomy, of vessels, ligaments and nerves encircling a part.[2]
  • 1741 – coronary artery.[3]
  • 1823 – of the crown of a tooth.[2]
  • 1893 – noun, a coronary artery or coronary thrombosis.[2][4]
  • 1955 – noun, a heart attack.[3]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Relating to the arteries that supply the heart with blood; more broadly, relating to the heart: coronary disease.[4][12][2]
  2. (anatomy) Of blood vessels, nerves or ligaments: encircling a part or structure like a crown.[12][4][2]
  3. Relating to or shaped like a crown.[4][2]
  4. (obsolete, 1610–1696) Suitable for making garlands.[2][11]

Noun

  1. A heart attack, especially one caused by a thrombosis in a coronary artery: Her father had a coronary in his fifties.[12][4][3]
  2. A coronary artery.[4][2]

Word family

  • postcoronary
  • coronary artery
  • coronary cushion
  • coronary heart disease
  • coronary sinus
  • coronary thrombosis
  • coronary vein

Usage notes

The OED records separately a rare noun coronary, the office of a coroner (1872), from Medieval Latin coronāria.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b 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 s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  7. ^ a b c d e Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  8. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  9. ^ 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.
  10. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 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 Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins