sepsis

Etymology

It is borrowed from New Latin sepsis,^[2][3][4][5] recorded in post-classical Latin by 1644,^[2] from Ancient Greek σῆψις (sêpsis, “putrefaction, decay”),^[2][3][6][7] from σήπω (sḗpō, “to make rotten, to rot”) and the suffix -σις (-sis).^[2][8][9] Barnhart and Etymonline call the Greek verb of unknown origin, and Etymonline adds that it may be Pre-Greek;^[4][3] the American Heritage Dictionary suggests a pre-Greek root and compares a Sanskrit word for a fungus.^[10] The same Greek verb is the source of septic, which is recorded earlier in English,^[2][8] and Klein relates it to sepia and sapro-.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A kind of digestion once believed to take place in the stomach, perhaps through the rotting of food: 1651, in N. Biggs's Matæotechnia Medicinæ, a rare sense now obsolete.^[2] Barnhart, Etymonline and Merriam-Webster Unabridged date the word to 1876, in the sense "putrefaction",^[4][3][11] and Dictionary.com to 1855–60.^[12]

Semantic evolution

From 1813 the word meant putrefaction, especially rotting thought to happen inside the body of a person or animal, a sense the OED now treats as historical.^[2] As bacteria came to be understood as the cause, it was used for infection of the blood or tissues by them,^[2][6] and the Shorter Oxford describes it as the state of being septic: blood poisoning or the destruction of tissue by germs or their toxins, especially through an infected wound.^[6] Merriam-Webster Unabridged treats it especially as septicemia,^[11] and Wiktionary describes it as a serious condition in which the body's response to infection inflames the whole body and injures its own organs.^[1]

Timeline

• 1651 – a supposed kind of digestion in the stomach (obsolete).^[2]
• 1813 – putrefaction, especially in a living body.^[2]
• 1876 – putrefaction, decomposition.^[4][3][11]
• late 19th century – infection of the body by bacteria and their toxins.^[6][9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A dangerous condition caused by disease-causing bacteria or their toxins spreading in the blood or tissues, often from an infected wound: The patient developed sepsis after surgery.^[11][6][13]
2. The presence of pus-forming bacteria or other pathogens in the body.^[5][13]

Word family

• antisepsis

Related words

• antiseptic
• asepsis
• aseptic
• septic
• septicemia
• sepia

References

1. ^ a b 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 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
6. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b 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. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin