diarrhea

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English diaria, also diarie,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French diarrie^[2][4][5] and Medieval Latin diaria,^[2][6] from Late Latin diarrhoea,^[4][7][6][5] from Ancient Greek διάρροια (diárrhoia, “a flowing through”),^[4][7][8][9] a term coined by Hippocrates.^[4][8] The Greek noun comes from a verb meaning "to flow through", formed from διά (diá, “through”) and ῥέω (rhéō, “to flow”),^[4][6][5][9] from Proto-Indo-European *sreu- (“to flow”).^[4][6] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster relate the Greek verb to stream.^[5][7] The form Anglo-Norman diarré is recorded from the second quarter of the 13th century.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

An abnormally frequent and loose discharge of the bowels: before 1398, in Trevisa's translation of Bartholomew's De Proprietatibus Rerum, which calls it a simple flux of the belly.^[5][2]

Semantic evolution

Middle English wrote diaria or diarie, and in the 16th century the word was respelled on the Latin model.^[5][4][3] Ayto notes that it means literally "through-flow", a formation parallel to diabetes.^[8] The British spelling is diarrhoea and the American diarrhea.^[7][11] It has a figurative use for an excessive flow, especially of words, as in verbal diarrhoea;^[12] Horace Walpole wrote of a man troubled with "a diarrhoea of words".^[12] According to Wiktionary it displaced the native word Old English ūtsiht.^[9]

Timeline

• 13th century – Anglo-Norman diarré.^[10]
• before 1398 – diaria, in Trevisa.^[5][2]
• c. 1425 – diaria, in a translation of Guy de Chauliac.^[2]
• 16th century – respelled diarrhoea on the Latin model.^[5][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. Abnormally frequent and loose or liquid bowel movements, caused by infection, poisoning or other disorders.^[7][11][12]
2. (figurative) An excessive flow, especially of words: verbal diarrhoea.^[12]

Word family

• diarrheal
• diarrheic
• diarrhetic
• traveler's diarrhea

Related words

• galactorrhea
• gonorrhea
• logorrhea
• pyorrhea
• rheology
• antidiarrheal
• stream
• dia-

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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 c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ a b c Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
10. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press