lumbar

Etymology

It is borrowed from New Latin lumbāris (“of the loins”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from Latin lumbus (“loin”) and the suffix -āris,^[2][6][7] the source of the English suffix -ar.^[5][7] The Oxford Dictionary of English and the Shorter Oxford call the source medieval Latin.^[8][9] Barnhart notes that Late Latin used the neuter lumbāre as a noun for a loincloth.^[5] Etymonline traces lumbus to Proto-Indo-European *lendh- (“loin”),^[3] and Klein and Skeat give its Germanic cognates: Old English lendenu (“loins”), Old Norse lend, Dutch lende, Old High German lenti and German Lende.^[7][10] The same Latin noun, through Vulgar Latin and Old French, gave English loin.^[3][7][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of or situated in the loins: 1656, in Thomas Blount's Glossographia, under the entry for vein.^[2][5] Etymonline dates it to the 1650s and Merriam-Webster to about 1656.^[3][6]

Semantic evolution

A Middle English noun lumbare, a bandage or sling for a rupture, is recorded about 1425 in a surgical text, taken from medieval Latin;^[12][9] the Shorter Oxford treats it as an earlier use of the same word.^[9] The adjective came in with 17th-century anatomy, describing the part of the back between the lowest ribs and the pelvis.^[2][4][13] From 1858, in Gray's Anatomy, it was also used as a noun, short for a lumbar artery, nerve, vein or vertebra.^[2][5] From 1895 it described procedures on the spinal cord in this region,^[2] as in lumbar puncture.^[9]

Timeline

• c. 1425 – Middle English noun lumbare, a bandage for a rupture.^[12][9]
• 1656 – of or situated in the loins.^[2][5][6]
• 1858 – noun, a lumbar artery, nerve, vein or vertebra.^[2][5]
• 1895 – relating to or performed on the spinal cord in the lumbar region.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of, near or in the lower part of the back, between the lowest ribs and the pelvis; of the loins: She has been having lumbar pain since the move.^{[4][13][6][2]}
2. Of the group of vertebrae between the thoracic vertebrae and the sacrum.^[6][4]
3. Of the region of the abdomen on each side of the navel region.^[6]
4. Performed on the spinal cord in the lumbar region, as in lumbar puncture.^[2][9]

Noun

1. A lumbar artery, nerve, vein or vertebra.^[4][2][9]

Word family

• dorsolumbar
• prelumbar
• sacrolumbar
• sublumbar
• thoracolumbar
• lumbago
• lumbar puncture

Related words

• loin
• sirloin
• lumbo-

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
12. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
13. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins