thrombosis

Etymology

It is borrowed from New Latin thrombōsis,^[2][3][4][5] recorded in post-classical Latin from 1560 or earlier,^[2] from Ancient Greek θρόμβωσις (thrómbōsis, “a curdling, clotting”),^[2][3][4][6] which in Hellenistic Greek also meant a blocked vein.^[2] The Greek noun is formed from θρομβόομαι (thrombóomai, “to become curdled or clotted”),^[2][4][7] from θρόμβος (thrómbos, “clot, curd, lump”),^[2][4][6][8] with the suffix -σις (-sis);^[2] compare -osis.^[4][7] Thrombus, from the same Greek noun, is recorded earlier, from 1693.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Curdling, or the coagulation of any substance: 1665, in Robert Lovell's herbal Pambotanologia, a rare sense that became obsolete after 1706.^[2] Barnhart and Etymonline date the word to 1706, in Kersey's edition of Phillips's dictionary,^[4][8] and the Shorter Oxford notes that the word first meant a coagulation or curdling.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The word kept the general Greek sense of curdling into the early 18th century.^[2][9] The medical sense, the formation of a clot inside a blood vessel or the heart during life, is recorded in the OED from 1857;^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates it to 1866.^[10] In plant pathology the word has also been used for a disease in which a parasite blocks the conduction of water, as in wilt diseases.^[10] In informal British use thrombosis alone can mean a coronary thrombosis.^[11]

Timeline

• 1665 – a curdling or coagulation of any substance (obsolete by 1706).^[2]
• 1857 – the formation of a clot within a blood vessel or the heart.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates this sense to 1866.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. The formation or presence of a blood clot, or thrombus, inside a blood vessel or the heart, which may block the flow of blood.^[10][11][2]
2. (informal) A coronary thrombosis.^[11]
3. (botany) A plant disease in which a parasite blocks the conduction of water, as in wilt diseases.^[10]
4. (obsolete, 1665–1706) Curdling; coagulation.^[2][9]

Word family

• thrombotic
• phlebothrombosis
• thrombus
• coronary thrombosis

Related words

• thrombin

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 m n 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 e f g 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 Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins