femoral

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin femorālis (“of the thigh”),^[2][3][4][5] which is from Latin femur (“thigh”), with the adjective suffix -ālis.^[2][6] The revised OED analyses it instead as formed in English from the Latin noun and the suffix -al, and notes that in post-classical Latin, from the 4th century, the adjective also meant worn on the thigh.^[7][8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of or on the thigh: 1597, in Peter Lowe's Whole Course of Chirurgerie, which speaks of the femoral vein.^[7] The 1989 edition of the OED had dated the adjective to 1782,^[10] as Etymonline does;^[3] Merriam-Webster gives about 1771,^[2] and Johnson's Dictionary already lists it in 1755.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The word has always been chiefly anatomical.^[9][7] In early use it could also mean placed on or over the thigh, a sense now obsolete.^[7] Johnson (1755) defined it as "belonging to the thigh" and quoted a surgeon on taking up the femoral arteries in an amputation.^[5] From 1754 it was used as a noun for a structure of the thigh, especially the femoral artery or vein.^[7][10] In zoology Merriam-Webster also records the noun for either of the two femoral shields of a turtle's plastron.^[2]

Timeline

• 1597 – of the thigh, in femoral vein.^[7]
• 1754 – noun, a femoral artery or vein.^[7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of, relating to, or near the femur or the thigh: the femoral artery.^[2][11][7]

Noun

1. A structure of the thigh, especially the femoral artery or vein.^[7][9]
2. (zoology) Either of the two femoral shields of the plastron of a turtle.^[2]

Word family

• interfemoral
• postfemoral
• femoral artery

Related words

• femur

Usage notes

A separate noun femoral, a pair of knee-length breeches, was borrowed from Middle French femoralles and Latin femoralia; it is recorded from about 1450 to 1851 and is now obsolete.^[7]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
5. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins