fecal

Etymology

It is formed from English feces + -al,^[2][3][4] the OED taking it from Latin faex (“dregs”) with -al, and comparing French fécal.^[5] The Merriam-Webster Unabridged derives it instead from Middle French fecal, from the Latin stem.^[6] Etymonline describes the Latin noun, meaning grounds, sediment or the lees of wine, as of unknown origin.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of the nature of feces, or containing them: about 1541, in Robert Copland's Questyonary of Cyrurgyens, a translation from Guy de Chauliac.^[5] The Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives 1541,^[6] Etymonline the 1540s,^[2] and Dictionary.com 1535–45.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The adjective is older than the sense "excrement" of the noun feces, which first meant dregs (about 1400) and was used for human excrement only from the 1630s, a sense not found in classical Latin.^[2] The OED, in a definition first published in 1894, lists medical phrases such as faecal abscess, faecal fistula and faecal tumour.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1541 – of the nature of feces.^[5][6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of, relating to, consisting of or containing feces: fecal bacteria in the river water.^[6][7][4]

Word family

• fecaloid

Related words

• feces
• faecal

Usage notes

Fecal is the usual American spelling, and faecal the British one,^[7][4] and the Merriam-Webster Unabridged calls it less common.^[6]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins