euthanasia

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek εὐθανασία (euthanasía, “an easy or happy death”),^[2][3][4][5] formed from εὖ (eû, “well”) and θάνατος (thánatos, “death”), with the abstract noun ending -ia.^[3][5][6] Collins and Dictionary.com take it into English through New Latin.^[7][8] Barnhart derives the Greek word for death from Proto-Indo-European *dhwenə-.^[4] A shorter English form, euthanasy, is recorded slightly earlier, from the 1630s.^[3][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A gentle and easy death: 1646, in Bishop Joseph Hall's Balme of Gilead,^[2][10] the 1640s in Etymonline.^[3] Barnhart dates the word to 1606, in Philemon Holland's translation of Suetonius.^[4][11]

Semantic evolution

Etymologically the word means "good death", and that was close to its sense when it came into English: the Tatler of 1709 has "Give me but gentle Death: Euthanasia, Euthanasia, that is all I implore".^[12] From 1742 it also meant the means of bringing about such a death, often figuratively: Hume called absolute monarchy the "true Euthanasia of the British constitution".^[2][13][14] The modern sense, the deliberate and painless killing of someone who is incurably ill, appears in 1869, in Lecky's History of European Morals,^[2][12][4] and has since become the main one.^[12] Dictionaries now use it also of animals, and of allowing a patient to die by withholding treatment.^[10][6]

Timeline

• 1646 – a gentle and easy death.^[2][10]
• 1742 – the means of bringing about such a death, also figurative.^[2][13]
• 1869 – the action of inducing an easy death; mercy killing.^[2][3][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act or practice of painlessly killing a person or animal suffering from an incurable illness or injury, or of allowing them to die, for reasons of mercy; mercy killing.^[10][6][7]
2. An easy and painless death, or a means of bringing one about.^[10][2]

Word family

• euthanasic
• euthanize

Related words

• thanato-
• euthanasy
• thanatology
• athanasy
• eu-

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
12. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
13. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press