Etymologically
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diarrhea

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˌdaɪ.əˈɹiː.ə/[1]

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
  • 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