Etymologically
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pelvis

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈpɛlvɪs/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from New Latin pelvis,[2][3][4] the anatomical use of Latin pēlvis (“shallow bowl, basin, laver”), early spelling pēluis.[5][6][3][7] Hoad notes that the anatomical applications are modern,[8] and the Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins explains them by the basin-like shape of the cavity.[9] The OED takes the Latin word as probably from the same Indo-European base as Old English full (“cup”),[5] and Etymonline and Barnhart trace it to Proto-Indo-European *pel- (“container”),[3][6] with cognates in Ancient Greek πήληξ (pḗlēx, “helmet”) and πελίκη (pelíkē, “goblet, bowl”), a Sanskrit word for a vessel, and Old Norse full (“cup”).[3][7][6][2] Klein rejects a connection with pellis (“skin, hide”).[7] The French word pelvis is recorded from 1666.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The basin-shaped cavity formed by the hip bones and the lower end of the backbone: 1615, in H. Crooke's Mikrokosmographia.[5][6][2]

Semantic evolution

The word has been an anatomical term from its first record in English.[5][8] Johnson (1755) defined it loosely as "the lower part of the belly".[10] From 1679 it was also used of the widened top of the ureter inside the kidney, the renal pelvis.[5][11] Rarer senses died out: a plain basin (1727) and, in zoology, the base of the cup of a crinoid (1839–72).[5] The adjective pelvic is recorded from 1830.[6]

Timeline

  • 1615 – the basin-shaped cavity of the hip bones and lower backbone.[5][6]
  • 1679 – the expanded upper part of the ureter in the kidney.[5]
  • 1727 – a basin (rare, obsolete).[5]
  • 1839 – in zoology, the base of a crinoid's cup (obsolete by 1872).[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The large basin-shaped structure at the lower end of the trunk of most vertebrates, formed in humans by the hip bones and the sacrum.[11][2][5]
  2. The bones that make up this structure, or the cavity they enclose.[11][2]
  3. The funnel-shaped upper part of the ureter inside the kidney; the renal pelvis.[11][5][2]

Word family

  • renal pelvis

Usage notes

The plural is pelvises or, following Latin, pelves.[11][2][12]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  7. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  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 d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  12. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press