rheumatoid

Etymology

It is formed from English rheumato- + -oid, after French rhumatoïde, recorded in 1825.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Webster's Third likewise call it an international scientific word from rheumatism and -oid, first formed in French,^[3][4] and the Shorter Oxford derives it from rheumatism and -oid.^[5] Etymonline and Dictionary.com take the first part from the stem of Ancient Greek ῥεῦμα (rheûma, “a discharge from the body, flux”),^[6][7] genitive ῥεύματος (rheúmatos), the source of rheum;^[8] the suffix comes from -οειδής (-oeidḗs, “like”), from εἶδος (eîdos, “form, shape”).^[8] The OED compares ῥευματώδης (rheumatṓdēs, “like a flux”).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Resembling rheumatism or its symptoms: 1845, in the Medical Times, which speaks of a "rheumatoid diathesis".^[2][3] Etymonline dates the word to 1847,^[6] and Dictionary.com to 1855–1860.^[7]

Semantic evolution

At first the word meant resembling rheumatism, rheumatic fever or other rheumatic disease, or affected with one of them.^[2] In 1859 the physician A. B. Garrod, in his treatise on gout, proposed rheumatoid arthritis as a name for a joint disease that implied no necessary link with either gout or rheumatism,^[2][6] and in later use the adjective came to refer specifically to that disease.^[2][3]

Timeline

• 1845 – resembling rheumatism or rheumatic disease.^[2][3]
• 1859 – rheumatoid arthritis, in A. B. Garrod.^[2][6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of, relating to, or affected with rheumatoid arthritis.^[3][2]
2. Resembling rheumatism or its symptoms.^[9][2][6]

Noun

1. A person with rheumatoid arthritis.^[3]

Word family

• rheumatoidally
• rheumatoid arthritis
• rheumatoid factor
• rheumatoid spondylitis

Related words

• rheum
• rheumatism
• rheumatic
• -oid
• arthritis

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins