obese

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin obēsus (“fat, stout, plump”),^[2][3][4][5] literally "that has eaten itself fat", the past participle of a compound of ob- and edō (“to eat”);^[6][4][7][8] the compound verb itself is otherwise unattested.^[2] The Latin verb comes from Proto-Indo-European *ed- (“to eat”), the source of eat.^[6][3] Etymonline and Barnhart take the English word as in part a back-formation from the earlier obesity (1611, from French obésité or Latin obēsitās).^[6][9] Because the Latin participle could also be read as "eaten up", it was used too in a passive sense, "wasted away, lean";^[6][10] Weekley compares the passive-active shift in drunk.^[11] Italian had obeso from 1588 and French obèse only from 1825.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Very fat or fleshy: 1651, in N. Biggs's Matæotechnia Medicinæ, a medical work.^[2][9][5]

Semantic evolution

The word was rare before the 19th century;^[2][6][8] Johnson (1755) entered it, defined as "fat; loaden with flesh", but with no quotation.^[12][2] Old English had rendered the Latin word as Old English oferfæt (“overfat”).^[6] In 19th-century entomology it was used of parts that look swollen or distended (1826, now rare).^[2] In modern medicine it has a precise meaning, having a body mass index of 30 or more,^[2] and it is also used of things that are unusually large or bloated.^[5][2] From 1915 the obese were obese people as a class, and since 1950 obese has also been the name of a mouse gene, later found to code for the hormone leptin.^[2] In American college slang of the late 1990s obese meant excellent, a play on phat.^[13]

Timeline

• 1611 – obesitie, obesity, in Cotgrave's dictionary.^[9]
• 1651 – very fat, corpulent.^[2][9][5]
• 1755 – in Johnson's dictionary, without a quotation.^[12][2]
• 1826 – entomology, appearing distended.^[2]
• 1915 – the obese, obese people.^[2]
• 1950 – genetics, the obese gene in mice.^[2]
• 1997 – US college slang, excellent.^[13]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Very fat; overweight to a degree that may harm health, in medicine having a body mass index of 30 or more.^[14][5][2]
2. Unusually large, bulky or swollen: a report obese with footnotes.^[5][2]

Word family

• obesely
• obeseness
• obesity
• overobese
• superobese
• unobese

Related words

• edible
• eat
• comestible

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 n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
14. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins