mammary

Etymology

The revised OED takes it as borrowed from New Latin mammārius, recorded from 1576 or earlier, formed from Latin mamma (“breast, udder”) and -ārius.^[2] Barnhart has it instead borrowed from French mammaire,^[3][4] which the OED dates to 1604 or earlier,^[2] and Etymonline allows either the French or the Latin word.^[5] Merriam-Webster Unabridged, the Oxford Dictionary of English and Dictionary.com analyse it as an English formation from the anatomical noun mamma and -ary.^[6][7][8] The Latin noun meant both "mother" and "breast",^[9][10][3] and comes from the nearly universal baby-talk reduplication of the syllable ma,^[5][9][10] which also gave Ancient Greek μάμμη (mámmē, “mother, grandmother”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of or relating to the breast: 1615, in Helkiah Crooke's anatomy Mikrokosmographia.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also dates it to 1615,^[6] while Barnhart and Etymonline give 1682 and the 1680s.^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

The mammary gland, the milk-secreting organ of mammals, is recorded from 1831 in Barnhart.^[3][2] As a noun it meant a mammary artery or vein from 1697.^[2][11] Between 1804 and 1889 it was also used of growths resembling a breast or mammary gland, as in mammary sarcoma.^[2] The colloquial and humorous plural mammaries, a woman's breasts, is first quoted from Steinbeck's The Wayward Bus (1947).^[2][11]

Timeline

• 1615 – of or relating to the breast.^[2][6]
• 1697 – noun, a mammary artery or vein.^[2]
• 1804 – resembling a breast or mammary gland, as in mammary sarcoma (obsolete by 1889).^[2]
• 1831 – mammary gland.^[3]
• 1947 – plural, colloquial, a woman's breasts.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of, relating to, near or affecting the breasts or mammae: a mammary tumour.^[6][12][2]
2. mammary gland: the gland that secretes milk in female mammals.^[2][11]

Noun

1. (anatomy) A mammary artery or vein.^[2][11]
2. (colloquial) In the plural, a woman's breasts.^[2][11]

Word family

• intermammary
• submammary

Related words

• mamma
• mammal
• mammary gland

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
5. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins