membrane

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin membrāna (“skin covering a part of the body; parchment”),^[2][3][4][5] from membrum (“limb, member of the body”) with the feminine of the suffix -ānus,^[2][6] so that it first meant what covers the limbs.^[3][7] The anatomical sense may have come partly through French membrane, a learned borrowing of the Latin word.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A thin layer of tissue in the body: about 1425, in a translation of Guy de Chauliac's Grande Chirurgie,^[2][3] or the 15th century according to Merriam-Webster.^[5] Barnhart instead puts first the sense of parchment, in 1519, and the anatomical sense in 1615.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The parchment sense, each of the skins sewn into a roll, appears in William Horman's Vulgaria (1519).^[2][8] It was applied to plants from 1601, to the membranes round an embryo by William Harvey (1653), and in cell biology to the layer around a cell from 1832.^[2] Ben Jonson used it (1631) for any thin sheet or layer, and figuratively;^[2] in modern physics it also names a two-dimensional entity proposed in superstring theory.^[10]

Timeline

• ?a1425 – a thin layer of tissue.^[2]
• 1519 – a skin of parchment in a roll.^[2][8]
• 1601 – a layer of tissue in a plant.^[2]
• 1631 – any thin sheet or layer.^[2]
• 1653 – the membranes around an embryo.^[2]
• 1832 – the membrane of a cell.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. (biology) A thin, pliable layer of tissue that covers, lines or joins organs or other parts.
2. (biology) The layer of lipids and proteins that encloses a cell or an organelle.
3. Any thin, pliable sheet of natural or artificial material, such as the skin of a drum or a filter.
4. A skin of parchment forming part of a roll.
5. (physics) In superstring theory, a two-dimensional entity proposed as a basic constituent of matter.

Word family

• membranal
• membraned
• membraneless
• membranophone
• membranous
• endomembrane
• intermembrane
• transmembrane

Related words

• member

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 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins