nutritious

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin nūtrītius (“that suckles, nourishes, nurses”), a variant of nūtrīcius,^[2][3][4][5] with -ous added in English.^[2][6][3] The Latin adjective is formed from nūtrīx (“nurse”),^[2][5][7][8] the source of nurse,^[5][8] which comes from nūtriō (“to nourish, suckle, feed”).^[9][4] Etymonline traces the verb to Proto-Indo-European *(s)nau- (“to swim, flow, let flow”), hence "to suckle".^[9] The Latin word has the counterparts Spanish nutricio and Portuguese nutrício, both from the 17th century or earlier.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of food, serving as nourishment: 1665, in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.^[2][4] Etymonline dates the word to the 1660s and Dictionary.com to 1655–65.^[9][3]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) defined it as "having the quality of nourishing", with quotations from Philips.^[10] In anatomy and physiology it was used from 1712 to 1831, rarely, for carrying nourishment, as in the nutritious vessels of the body;^[2][11] the OED marks this use obsolete.^[2] Darwin used it in 1862 of a flavour, for wholesome, a rare use.^[2] The derived noun nutritiousness is recorded from the early 18th century and the adverb nutritiously from the mid 18th century.^[11]

Timeline

• 1665 – of food, nourishing.^[2][4]
• 1712 – conveying nourishment (obsolete by 1831).^[2]
• 1862 – of flavour, wholesome (rare).^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of food, providing nourishment; rich in the nutrients the body needs: a nutritious breakfast of oats and fruit.^[8][4][2]
2. (obsolete) Conveying nourishment, as of blood vessels.^[2][11]

Word family

• nutritiously
• nutritiousness
• nonnutritious
• unnutritious

Related words

• nutrient
• nutrition
• nourish
• nurse
• nutritive
• nutriment

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press