stoma

Etymology

It is borrowed from New Latin stoma,^[2][3][4][5] from Ancient Greek στόμα (stóma, “mouth”), genitive στόματος (stómatos),^[2][3][6][7] which also meant a mouthpiece, voice, the mouth of a river, and any outlet or inlet.^[8] Etymonline traces it to Proto-Indo-European *stom-en-, a stem for various body parts and openings, also behind Avestan staman- (“mouth (of a dog)”), Middle Breton staffn (“mouth, jawbone”) and Cornish stefenic (“palate”).^[8] The Greek word is also the source of στόμαχος (stómakhos, “throat, gullet”), whence stomach.^[6][4][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A small opening in an animal body, an orifice or pore: 1684, in the English translation of Blankaart's Physical Dictionary.^[2][4][8] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates it to about 1684, and Dictionary.com to 1675–85.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

The word entered English as a term of anatomy and zoology.^[2][8] Botanists applied it from 1837 to the tiny pores in the skin of leaves, through which gases pass in and out between two guard cells;^[2][8][7] this is now the first sense in Collins.^[11] The surgical sense, an opening made into a hollow organ such as the gut, usually through the surface of the body, is recorded from 1937,^[2][8] and has given compounds such as stoma patient and stoma therapy.^[2][7]

Timeline

• 1684 – a small opening or pore in an animal body.^[2][4]
• 1837 – in botany, a pore in the epidermis of a leaf.^[2][8]
• 1937 – in surgery, an artificial opening into a hollow organ.^[2][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. (botany) One of the minute pores in the epidermis of a leaf or stem, between two guard cells, through which gases pass in and out.^[11][9][7]
2. (anatomy, zoology) A small mouthlike opening or pore in an animal body.^[11][9][2]
3. (surgery) An artificial opening made into a hollow organ, especially one through the abdominal wall into the colon: After the operation the nurse showed him how to care for the stoma.^[11][7][2]

Word family

• stomal
• stomatous

Related words

• ostomy
• -stomy
• stomach
• xerostomia

Usage notes

The plural is stomata, but in the surgical sense usually stomas;^[7][9] the plural stomata is pronounced with stress on the first or the second syllable.^[11][9]

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 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins