uterine

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old French uterin or, as the OED allows, directly borrowed from Late Latin uterīnus,^[2][3] from Latin uterus (“womb, belly”),^[2][3][4] the source of uterus, formed with the Latin adjective suffix -īnus, the source of -ine.^[4][5] The Late Latin adjective meant both "of the womb" and "born of the same mother", and the Anglo-Norman word is recorded from about 1334 for a half-brother with the same mother but a different father.^[3][6] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English take the sense "born of the same mother" from Late Latin, but the anatomical sense as a new formation from English uterus + -ine.^[7][8] The same Late Latin word gave Italian uterino, Spanish uterino and Portuguese uterino.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Having the same mother but a different father: 1447, in Bokenham's Lyvys of Seyntys.^[2] Etymonline dates this sense to the early 15th century,^[3] and Dictionary.com to 1400–50.^[9] A noun uterines, children of the same mother, appears in a translation of Higden's Polychronicon from around 1475.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word came into English as a term of kinship, and its use for things belonging to the womb itself followed only in the 17th century.^[2][3] In 1632 Lithgow used it more widely for relatives through the mother,^[2] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged also records it for kinship traced entirely through women, as in a uterine system of descent.^[5] The medical senses began in 1615, in Crooke's Mikrokosmographia, for instruments used on the womb;^[2] the plain sense "of the womb" is recorded from 1646 in Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica,^[2] which Etymonline dates to the 1610s.^[3] Johnson (1755) knew only the anatomical meaning, "belonging to the womb", and quoted Browne for it.^[10] Later extensions were "affecting or taking place in the uterus" (before 1661), remedies for the womb (1771) and "of the nature of a uterus" (1841),^[2] and since 1870 the word has described vellum made from the skin of an unborn calf or lamb.^[2] The noun, a remedy for disorders of the womb, was used from 1661 to 1718.^[2]

Timeline

• 1447 – having the same mother but a different father.^[2]
• c. 1475 – noun, in the plural, children of the same mother (now obsolete).^[2]
• 1615 – of surgical instruments, made for use in the womb.^[2]
• 1632 – related by blood through the mother.^[2]
• 1646 – of or belonging to the womb.^[2][3]
• before 1661 – affecting or taking place in the uterus.^[2]
• 1661 – noun, a medicine for disorders of the womb (obsolete by 1718).^[2]
• 1771 – suitable for treating the womb.^[2]
• 1841 – of the nature of a uterus.^[2]
• 1870 – of vellum, made from the skin of an unborn calf or lamb.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of, relating to, or located in the uterus; affecting or happening in the uterus: uterine bleeding.^[11][5][2]
2. Made for use in or on the uterus, as a surgical instrument.^[5][2]
3. Born of the same mother but not the same father: her uterine sister.^{[11][5][2][4]}
4. Related by blood through the mother; tracing kinship only through women: a uterine uncle.^[5][2][7]

Word family

• extrauterine
• nonuterine
• postuterine
• transuterine
• intrauterine
• intrauterine device

Related words

• uterus

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
7. ^ a b 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. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins