Etymologically
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membrane

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈmɛm.bɹeɪn/[1]

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

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