pancreas

Etymology

It is borrowed from New Latin pancreas,^[2][3][4][5] recorded in post-classical Latin by 1559,^[2] from Ancient Greek πάγκρεας (pánkreas, “sweetbread, pancreas”),^[2][6][7][8] from παν- (pan-, “all”) and κρέας (kréas, “flesh, meat”),^{[2][9][10][11]} so "all flesh".^[9][12][8] Barnhart takes it directly from Greek.^[6] The name probably refers to the uniform substance of the organ;^[9][12] Skeat thought of its softness.^[13] The Greek noun for flesh comes from Proto-Indo-European *kreue- (“raw flesh”),^[9][10] which also gave raw.^[14][4] The word was taken into pancréas in 1562.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The digestive gland behind the stomach: 1578, in John Banister's Historie of Man,^[2][4] at first spelled panchreas.^[6][14] Etymonline dates it to the 1570s.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The anatomical meaning has not changed.^[2][15] Johnson (1755) called it "the pancreas or sweet bread", a gland lying across the abdomen from the liver to the spleen.^[16] As food, an animal's pancreas is a sweetbread,^[12][11][17] and Greek πάγκρεας (pánkreas) already had both meanings.^[9][6] Zoologists also used the word from 1841 for several glands of the digestive tract of invertebrates, a use now rare or historical.^[2] The adjective pancreatic is recorded from 1665–66.^[6]

Timeline

• 1578 – the digestive gland of the abdomen, as panchreas.^[2][6]
• 1665–66 – the adjective pancreatic.^[6]
• 1841 – in zoology, a digestive gland of invertebrates (now rare).^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large gland behind the stomach that secretes digestive enzymes into the duodenum and the hormones insulin and glucagon into the blood.^{[3][4][2][15]}
2. The pancreas of an animal used as food; a sweetbread.^[11][17]

Word family

• pancreatic
• hepatopancreas
• pancreatectomy
• pancreatitis

Related words

• pan-
• sweetbread
• creatine
• raw
• crude

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
4. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
15. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray