protuberance

Etymology

It is formed from English protuberant + -ance,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} though Barnhart and Etymonline derive it directly from the Late Latin participle,^[7][8] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged from the Late Latin verb with the English suffix.^[9] The adjective, recorded from 1578,^[2][9] is from Late Latin prōtūberō (“to swell, bulge, grow forth”), through its present participle prōtūberāns,^{[8][7][4][10]} with French protubérant as a further source according to Barnhart and Etymonline.^[7][8] The Late Latin verb is formed from Latin prō- (“forward”) and tūber (“lump, swelling”),^[8][7][10] which Etymonline takes from Proto-Indo-European *teue- (“to swell”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A thing that sticks out; a rounded projection, swelling or knob: 1635, in D. Person's Varieties.^[2][9] Barnhart dates the noun to 1646,^[7] and Etymonline to the 1640s, with the sense of a swelling tumour on the body.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The abstract sense, the fact of bulging out, followed in 1653, in Harvey's Anatomical Exercitations;^[2] Etymonline has it only by the 1680s,^[8] and the Shorter Oxford from the late 17th century.^[3] Johnson (1755) glosses the word as something swelling above the rest, a prominence or tumour, and quotes a passage on the protuberances of the earth being levelled by water.^[11] In the 19th century astronomers used it for a solar prominence, compare French protubérance solaire (1868), a use now rare.^[2]

Timeline

• 1635 – a rounded projection, swelling or knob.^[2][9]
• 1653 – the fact or condition of bulging or projecting.^[2]
• 1746 – the altered form protruberance.^[2]
• 1869 – in astronomy, a solar prominence.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. Something that sticks out from a surface, such as a bulge, knob or swelling: a bony protuberance above the eye.^{[12][13][9][2]}
2. The state of being protuberant; the fact of bulging out.^[12][9][2]
3. (astronomy, rare) A solar prominence.^[2][3]

Word family

• protuberancy
• protuberantial

Related words

• protuberant
• tuber
• protuberate

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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
13. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press