Etymologically
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tuberculosis

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /tjuːˌbɜːkjʊˈləʊsɪs/[1]
  • US: /tuˌbɝkjʊˈloʊsɪs/, /tʊ-/[1]

Etymology

The OED takes it as borrowed from German Tuberculosis, recorded from 1830 or earlier and often attributed to J. L. Schönlein, now Tuberkulose.[2] Other dictionaries call it a New Latin New Latin coinage.[3][4][5][6] Either way it is formed from Latin tūberculum (“small swelling, tubercle”), the source of tubercle, and the suffix -osis, of Greek origin.[2][7][8][9] The Latin noun is a diminutive of tūber (“lump, swelling”),[7] which Etymonline traces to Proto-Indo-European *teue- (“to swell”).[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Any disease marked by the formation of tubercles: 1839, in the American Medical Intelligencer.[2][10] Barnhart and Etymonline date it to 1860, Barnhart from Thomas Tanner's On the Signs and Diseases of Pregnancy.[3][7]

Semantic evolution

The disease was named after the tubercles that form in the lungs,[7][8] which Klein says Richard Morton of London first noticed in 1689.[8] At first the name covered any disease with tubercles; after Robert Koch discovered the tubercle bacillus in 1882 it was restricted to the disease that bacillus causes,[7][4] now Mycobacterium tuberculosis.[2][10] The older literary name for it is consumption, and the abbreviation T.B. is recorded from 1912.[5][7]

Timeline

  • 1689 – Richard Morton notes the tubercles in the lungs.[8]
  • 1839 – first English record, of a disease marked by tubercles.[2][10]
  • 1860 – in Thomas Tanner's book on pregnancy.[3][7]
  • 1882 – Koch discovers the tubercle bacillus, and the name narrows to the disease it causes.[7]
  • 1912 – the abbreviation T.B.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. An infectious disease of humans and some other animals caused by the tubercle bacillus, marked by small swellings in the tissues and most often affecting the lungs: He spent a year in a sanatorium recovering from tuberculosis.[5][10][2]
  2. Any disease marked by the formation of tubercles.[4][2]

Word family

  • tuberculin
  • antituberculosis
  • paratuberculosis
  • pseudotuberculosis
  • pulmonary tuberculosis
  • miliary tuberculosis

Usage notes

It is often shortened to TB,[5][6] and older writers called it consumption or phthisis.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  8. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  10. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster