Etymologically
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pathology

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Pronunciation

  • /pəˈθɒləd͡ʒi/[1]

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

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