physiology

Etymology

It is partly borrowed from Middle French physiologie (“natural science”),^[2][3][4] recorded in French from 1547,^[2] and partly directly borrowed from Latin physiologia (“natural philosophy, natural science”),^[2][3][5][6] from Ancient Greek φυσιολογία (phusiología, “inquiry into nature, natural science”), a word used by Aristotle,^[2][7][3] from φυσιολόγος (phusiológos, “one who inquires into nature”),^[2][7] from φύσις (phúsis, “nature”) and -λόγος (-lógos, “one who speaks or deals with a topic”).^[7] The Oxford Dictionary of English takes it from Latin, perhaps via French.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Natural philosophy, natural science, or a particular system of it: 1564, in Bauldwin's Moral Philosophy.^[2][9][5] Etymonline dates it to the 1560s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word was narrowed from natural science in general to the science of the functions of living organisms in 1615, in Helkiah Crooke's Mikrokosmographia, a description of the human body;^[2][5] Etymonline dates the sense to the 1610s.^[3] Barnhart treats it as a new borrowing from New Latin,^[5] and the OED notes that post-classical Latin had that sense by 1554 and French by 1611, in Cotgrave.^[2] Johnson (1755) still defined it as "the doctrine of the constitution of the works of nature",^[10] and the old sense lasted until 1881 in the OED's records,^[2] to the late 18th century in the Shorter Oxford's.^[4] Fowler (1926), quoted by Etymonline, noted that physics and physiology once shared the wide meaning of natural science, and were then narrowed: physics to matter and energy in inorganic nature, physiology to the functions of living beings.^[3] Since 1615 the word has also named the functional processes of an organism or of one of its parts.^[2][6]

Timeline

• 1564 – natural philosophy, natural science (obsolete by 1881).^[2][9]
• 1615 – the science of the functions of living organisms.^[2][5]
• 1755 – Johnson still gives only the old sense.^[10]
• 1881 – last record of the old sense.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The branch of biology that studies how living organisms and their organs, tissues and cells work.^[6][9][2]
2. The processes and functions of an organism or of one of its parts: the physiology of the liver.^[6][2]
3. (obsolete) Natural science; natural philosophy (1564–1881).^[2][9][4]

Word family

• physiologist

Related words

• physiological
• physics
• physic
• physique
• physical

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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
7. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ 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.