hepatitis

Etymology

It is borrowed from New Latin hepatitis, recorded in post-classical Latin from 1558 or earlier, and its source borrowed from Ancient Greek ἡπατῖτις (hēpatîtis, “inflammation of the liver”), a word used by Hippocrates.^[2][3][4] The Greek noun is the adjective of the same form, meaning "of the liver", used as a noun, formed from ἧπαρ (hêpar, “liver”), genitive ἥπατος (hḗpatos), and the suffix -ῖτις (-îtis), the source of -itis.^[2][5][6][7] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster treat it as a New Latin formation from the same parts.^[5][8] The Greek word for liver goes back to Proto-Indo-European *yekwr- (“liver”), which also gave Latin jecur and Old Lithuanian jeknos.^[9] The French form is hépatite, recorded from 1660.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Inflammation of the liver: 1699, in Drake and Baden's English version of Le Clerc's history of medicine, translating a French passage of 1696 that already used the form hepatitis.^[2] Barnhart and Etymonline date it from 1727,^[5][9] and Merriam-Webster from about 1751.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The meaning has stayed the same, but in later use the word is mostly qualified by a word that names the cause or type of the inflammation.^[2] The viral forms are distinguished by letters: hepatitis A is the infectious form, hepatitis B the form formerly called serum hepatitis, and hepatitis C a viral form spread through infected blood.^[7][10] Collins describes the disease as marked by fever, jaundice and weakness.^[10]

Timeline

• 1558 – post-classical Latin hepatitis.^[2]
• 1699 – inflammation of the liver.^[2]
• 1727 – date given by Barnhart and Etymonline.^[5][9]

Meanings

Noun

1. Inflammation of the liver.^{[8][10][2][11]}
2. Any of several diseases marked by this, especially those caused by viruses, such as hepatitis A, hepatitis B and hepatitis C.^[8][7][10]

Word family

• hepatitis A
• hepatitis B
• hepatitis C

Related words

• hepatic
• -itis

References

1. ^ 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. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ Stedman's Medical Dictionary, Baltimore: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins