cutaneous

Etymology

It is borrowed from New Latin cutāneus,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} which Etymonline, Klein and Weekley call Medieval Latin;^[8][9][10] the OED adds the English suffix -ous.^[2][11] The Latin adjective is formed from Latin cutis (“skin”),^[2][8][4][6] with the suffix -āneus.^[12][9] The American Heritage Dictionary takes it as a back-formation from Late Latin intercutāneus and subcutāneus, both meaning "under the skin", and traces cutis to the root Proto-Indo-European *(s)keu- (“to cover, conceal”).^[13] The Latin noun is related to hide, the skin of an animal,^[3][4][6][7] and is the source of cuticle.^[8] The OED compares French cutané, recorded in French from 1721.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of, relating to or affecting the skin: 1578, in a marginal note of J. Banister's Historie of Man.^[2][3][4] Etymonline dates the word to the 1570s.^[8]

Semantic evolution

From 1745, in a poem by E. Young (Complaint: Night the Eighth), it was also used figuratively for external or superficial.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as "relating to the skin", with quotations about cutaneous eruptions.^[14] It is now used of nerves, infections and tests on the skin.^[4]

Timeline

• 1578 – of or affecting the skin.^[2][3][4]
• 1745 – figuratively, external, superficial.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of, relating to or affecting the skin: a cutaneous rash.^[7][4][2]
2. (figurative) External, superficial.^[2]

Word family

• cutaneously
• intracutaneous
• mucocutaneous
• percutaneous
• subcutaneous
• transcutaneous

Related words

• cuticle
• cutis
• hide

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 Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.