Etymologically
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hepatitis

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Pronunciation

  • /ˌhɛpəˈtaɪ̯tɪs/[1]

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
  • 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