menses

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin mēnsēs (“menstrual discharge”),^[2][3][4][5] a special use of the plural of mēnsis (“month”),^[2][3][6][7] which also named the months of pregnancy.^[2] The Latin noun is from Proto-Indo-European *me(n)ses- (“moon, month”),^[5] and is related to month and moon.^[5][7][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Menstrual periods: 1597, in Gerard's Herball.^[2][3][8]

Semantic evolution

Wiktionary explains the name by the roughly monthly span of the menstrual cycle.^[1] The word was taken with plural agreement for menstrual periods, and is also used, with singular or plural agreement, for a single period or for the menstrual blood itself.^[2] The Shorter Oxford also gives the time of menstruation.^[9]

Timeline

• 1597 – menstrual periods; the menstrual discharge.^[2][3][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. The flow of blood and tissue from the uterus during menstruation: Her menses returned after the illness.^[8][10][11]
2. The monthly period of bleeding, or the days during which it lasts.^[10][8][9]

Related words

• menstruation
• menstrual cycle
• menarche
• menstrual
• menstruum
• month
• moon

References

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