Etymologically
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retina

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 31 October 2026 at 16:34. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈɹɛt.ɪ.nə/[1]
  • US: /ˈɹɛt.ə.nə/, /ˈɹɛt.nə/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English retina, also rethina,[2][3][4] borrowed from Medieval Latin rētina,[5][6][7][2] formed from Latin rēte (“net”) with the suffix -īna,[5][8] because the membrane's fine texture or its network of blood vessels was likened to a net.[5][9][10] Etymonline and Wiktionary take the Medieval Latin noun as short for tunica rētina (“net-like coat”) of the eye,[10][4] a phrase found in the 12th century and perhaps made by the translator Gerard of Cremona for Arabic طَبَقَة شَبَكِيَّة (ṭabaqa šabakiyya, “net-like layer”),[4][10] which itself translates Ancient Greek ἀμφιβληστροειδής (amphiblēstroeidḗs, “net-like”), the term of Galen.[4][10] Klein instead takes Gerard's word as a loan translation of the Hebrew word for "net", used in medieval Hebrew for the retina.[11] Barnhart relates rēte to Lithuanian rėtis (“sieve”) and derives both from Proto-Indo-European *er- (“loose”).[9][3] The word was taken into French as rétine in 1314,[5][12] and into retina, retina and retina later.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A membrane of the eye: before 1398, in John Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, which places the rethina beside the crystalline humour.[5][2] The Middle English word was used both for a membrane enclosing the whole eyeball and for the one at the back of it.[2][10] Barnhart dates the first record to 1392.[9][13]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline distinguishes the late 14th-century sense "membrane enclosing the eyeball" from the sense "innermost coating of the back of the eyeball", recorded from about 1400,[10] and only the second survived.[2][5] Later anatomy described it as the light-sensitive layer, made of rods and cones, that receives the image formed by the lens and passes it to the brain along the optic nerve.[5][3][14] From 1691 the word was also used figuratively for something that keeps an image or a feeling, often in the phrase the retina of the mind, for memory or imagination.[5] The adjective retinal and the vitamin name retinol are later derivatives.[4][3]

Timeline

  • before 1398 – a membrane of the eye, in Trevisa.[5][2]
  • c. 1400 – the innermost coat at the back of the eyeball.[10]
  • 1691 – figurative, something that retains an image, as in the retina of the mind.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The light-sensitive layer of tissue lining the back of the eyeball, containing the rods and cones that turn the image formed by the lens into nerve impulses carried to the brain by the optic nerve.[14][3][5][6]
  2. (figurative) Something that keeps an image or impression, such as memory: the retina of the mind.[5]

Word family

  • retinal
  • retinol
  • retino-
  • retin-
  • retinitis
  • retinoid
  • retinula
  • rete
  • reticle
  • reticulate
  • reticule

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d e Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., 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 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  7. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  9. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  10. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  11. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  13. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  14. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins