ulcer

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old French ulcere^[2][3][4] and directly borrowed from Latin ulcus (“sore, ulcer”), stem ulcer-.^[4][5][6] The OED, the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English derive it only from the Latin noun, and the OED records the Old French word only from 1314.^[5][7][8] Etymonline and Klein place Vulgar Latin *ulcerem between the Latin and the French.^[3][9] The Latin noun is related to Ancient Greek ἕλκος (hélkos, “wound, sore”)^[5][10][6] and to a Sanskrit word for hemorrhoids.^[6][3][9] Etymonline traces them to Proto-Indo-European *elkes- (“wound”).^[3] Latin also gave Italian ulcera, Spanish ulcera and Portuguese ulcera.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

An open sore on the surface of the body, discharging pus: about 1400, in Lanfranc's Cirurgie, a surgical treatise.^[5][3] Barnhart dates the noun to before 1400,^[4] and Dictionary.com gives 1350–1400.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Middle English medical books also used the classical form ulcus and the adapted ulce.^[3] Etymonline describes the early sense as a festering wound on an external soft part of the body, while the OED's definition covers any surface, external or internal.^[3][5] Johnson (1755) distinguished it from a fresh injury: "A sore of continuance; not a new wound".^[12] The figurative sense, a corrupting influence or moral blemish, appeared in the 1590s,^[5][3][7] and Latin ulcus could already mean a painful subject.^[3] From 1602 the word was occasionally applied to a person, which the OED calls rare.^[5] The verb is dated to 1592 by the OED and to late Middle English by the Shorter Oxford, which calls it now rare.^[5][7] Barnhart dates ulcerate to about 1425 and ulceration to about 1400.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – an open sore on a surface of the body.^[5][3]
• 1592 – figurative, a corrupting influence; verb, to cause an ulcer.^[5]
• 1602 – applied to a person (rare).^[5]
• 1611 – attributive and combining use.^[5]
• before 1625 – generic singular, an ulcerative condition.^[5][7]
• 1642 – transitive verb, to ulcerate, also figurative.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. An open sore on the skin or a mucous membrane, with loss of surface tissue, that heals slowly and may produce pus: The nurse dressed an ulcer on his shin.^[6][13][5]
2. A source of corruption or evil: Bribery had become an ulcer in the city's government.^[13][5]

Verb

1. To ulcerate (now rare).^[6][7]

Word family

• antiulcer
• ulcerogenic
• ulcerate
• ulceration
• ulcerative
• ulcerous
• duodenal ulcer
• decubitus ulcer

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ 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
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins