pathology

Etymology

It is borrowed from New Latin pathologia (“study of disease”),^[2][3][4][5] and partly borrowed from Middle French pathologie.^[5][4][3][6] The OED notes that the Latin word meant the branch of knowledge dealing with the emotions in an undated glossary and the study of disease in a book title of 1555, and that the French word is recorded from 1550.^[2] The Latin is from Ancient Greek παθολογία (pathología, “study of the passions”),^[5][7][4] formed from πάθος (páthos, “suffering”) and -λογία (-logía, “study”).^[7][4][2] Etymonline traces páthos to Proto-Indo-European *kwent(h)- (“to suffer”).^[4] In Greek the science of diseases was called παθολογική (pathologikḗ) (understood as "art"), not pathología.^[7][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the plural, sorrows or sufferings: in a heading of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, written before 1586 and printed in 1590.^[2] The OED calls this use rare, and the Shorter Oxford records it only in the late 16th century.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

The medical sense, the study of the causes and nature of disease, is first recorded in Cotgrave's French–English dictionary of 1611,^[2][3][5] and Etymonline dates it to the 1610s.^[4] A short-lived learned sense, the branch of knowledge that deals with the emotions, followed the Greek word and is recorded from 1681 to 1833.^[2] From 1679 the word also meant the set of morbid changes that make up a disease, or a single diseased condition.^[2] Johnson (1755), following Quincy, defined it as the part of medicine that deals with diseases, their differences, causes and effects.^[8] The study of mental illness is recorded from 1789, in Bentham,^[2] though Etymonline dates this use to 1842.^[4] From 1828 the word was extended to any abnormality in the moral, social or linguistic sphere,^[2] and since 1961 mathematicians have used it for a pathological feature of a mathematical system.^[2]

Timeline

• before 1586 – in the plural, sorrows, sufferings (now obsolete).^[2][6]
• 1611 – the study of disease, in Cotgrave.^[2][3][5]
• 1679 – the changes that make up a disease; a diseased condition.^[2]
• 1681 – the study of the emotions (obsolete by 1833).^[2]
• 1688 – the adjective pathological, in Boyle.^[3]
• 1789 – the study of mental illness.^[2]
• 1828 – abnormality in the moral or social sphere.^[2]
• 1961 – in mathematics, a pathological feature.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The branch of medicine that studies the causes, nature and development of disease and the changes it produces in the tissues and organs of the body: She took a degree in plant pathology.^[9][5][2]
2. The changes and signs that make up a particular disease; a diseased condition: the pathology of the lung tumour.^[9][5][2]
3. Any departure from what is normal or healthy, especially in the mind, behaviour or society: the pathology of urban violence.^[9][2]
4. (mathematics) A pathological feature or element of a mathematical system.^[2]
5. (obsolete) In the plural, sorrows or sufferings.^[2][6]

Word family

• pathologist
• micropathology
• cytopathology
• histopathology
• immunopathology
• neuropathology
• paleopathology
• pathological

Related words

• pathogenesis
• pathobiology
• pathophysiology
• pathos
• pathetic
• pathogen
• psychopathology
• sympathy
• empathy
• apathy
• -logy

References

1. ^ 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 r s t u v w 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. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins