epilepsy

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French epilepsie and partly directly borrowed from Late Latin epilepsia,^[2][3][4][5] from Ancient Greek ἐπιληψία (epilēpsía, “epileptic fit”),^[2][6][7] related to ἐπίληψις (epílēpsis, “act of seizing, epileptic fit”).^[2][8] The Greek words go back to ἐπιλαμβάνειν (epilambánein, “to lay hold of, seize, attack”),^[2][6][9] formed from ἐπί (epí, “upon”) and λαμβάνειν (lambánein, “to take, seize”).^[6][8][10] Etymologically, Ayto notes, the word means much the same as English seizure.^[9] The French word is recorded from 1503,^[2] and the Latin one from the 4th century.^[2] It replaced the Middle English epilency, from Old French epilencie and epilence and Medieval Latin epilentia,^[3][2] a form that Etymonline thinks was influenced by pestilence.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A condition with sudden fits of involuntary spasm, often with loss of consciousness and falling: 1543, in Bartholomew Traheron's translation of Giovanni da Vigo's surgery.^[2][7] Barnhart and Etymonline give 1578 and the 1570s.^[3][8]

Semantic evolution

The OED notes that the word at first covered any condition of sudden spasms with loss of consciousness, before it came to name a chronic disorder of the brain.^[2] It replaced epilency, in use from before 1398 to 1540,^[2][3] and, as Weekley notes, began in the 16th century to replace the native name, the falling sickness;^[11][8] Old English had the adjective fylleseoc (“epileptic”), which glosses Latin epilepticus.^[12][8] Johnson (1755) described it as a convulsion of the whole body or of some of its parts, with loss of sense.^[13] The adjective epileptic is recorded from 1605, in Shakespeare's King Lear, and the noun epileptic, a person with epilepsy, from 1651, in Hobbes.^[3]

Timeline

• a1398 – epilency, the earlier name (until 1540).^[2][3]
• 1543 – epilepsy, a condition with fits and loss of consciousness.^[2][7]
• 1578 – first record in Barnhart.^[3]
• 1605 – adjective epileptic, in Shakespeare's King Lear.^[3]
• 1651 – noun epileptic, in Hobbes's Leviathan.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A chronic disorder of the nervous system marked by recurring seizures, which may involve convulsions or loss of consciousness.^{[14][7][4][2]}

Word family

• antiepileptic
• epileptic
• epileptiform

Related words

• epilency
• catalepsy
• narcolepsy
• lemma
• dilemma
• syllable

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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins