leukemia

Etymology

It is borrowed from German Leukämie,^[2][3][4] coined in 1848 by the pathologist Rudolf Virchow^[2][3] from Ancient Greek λευκός (leukós, “white, clear”) and αἷμα (haîma, “blood”).^[2][3][5][6] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster describe it as formed from leuko- and -emia after the German word.^[7][8] The Greek adjective is from Proto-Indo-European *leuk- (“light, brightness”).^[3] An earlier English name, leucocythaemia, recorded in 1852, fell out of use in the early 1900s;^[7][9] Dictionary.com records an earlier English form, leuchaemia.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A progressive disease of the blood-forming tissues in which white blood cells increase greatly: 1855, in R. G. Mayne's Expository Lexicon of Medical Science.^[2][7][10] Etymonline dates the word to 1851.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The name describes the white appearance of the blood, literally "white blood".^[5][6] It replaced the longer leucocythaemia, "white-cell blood", which disappeared from the record of English early in the 20th century.^[7][9] The disease is classified by the dominant type of cell and by its course, as acute or chronic.^[11]

Timeline

• 1848 – German Leukämie, coined by Virchow.^[2][3]
• 1851 – in English, according to Etymonline.^[3]
• 1852 – the earlier name leucocythaemia.^[7]
• 1855 – leukaemia in a medical dictionary.^[2][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. Any of a group of malignant diseases of the blood-forming organs, such as the bone marrow, spleen and lymph nodes, in which abnormal white blood cells multiply and crowd out the normal cells of the blood; it is classified as acute or chronic.^{[9][8][12][11]}

Word family

• leukemic
• leukemogenesis
• leukemoid

Related words

• leukocyte
• leuko-
• -emia
• anemia
• light
• lucid

Usage notes

Leukemia is the usual American spelling and leukaemia the British one;^[9][12] leucemia and leucaemia are less common variants.^[8][9][12]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
11. ^ a b Stedman's Medical Dictionary, Baltimore: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
12. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press