uterus

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin uterus (“womb, belly”).^[2][3][4][5] Etymonline and Barnhart trace it to Proto-Indo-European *udero- (“abdomen, womb, stomach”),^[4][3] the source also of Sanskrit उदर (udára, “belly”),^[4][6][7] Lithuanian vėderas (“sausage, stomach”),^[4][6] Latvian vēders (“belly”)^[7][3] and perhaps Ancient Greek ὑστέρα (hustéra, “womb”), the source of hysteria.^[7][4][6] Klein and Etymonline also compare the Old Church Slavonic word for a bucket or barrel.^[6][4] Barnhart suggests that the Latin t, where d would be expected, may come from the influence of uter (“leather bag”).^[3] The Latin word is also the source of utérus, first used by Paré, and of utero.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The womb of a woman, in which she conceives: before 1398, in Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus.^[8][3] The OED, in an entry not yet revised, first records it in Helkiah Crooke's Mikrokosmographia (1615),^[2] and Ayto names Crooke as the first user;^[7] Dictionary.com dates it 1605–15.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The Latin word meant both the belly and the womb,^[4][3][10] but in English it has always been the anatomical name for the womb, the plain word womb being its non-technical equivalent.^[11][2] Johnson (1755) entered it simply as "the womb", marked as Latin.^[12] From 1753 zoologists applied it to the corresponding organ of other animals, including birds and fishes.^[2][13] Botanists used it from 1682 for the pericarp and later for structures in fungi.^[2] The Latin plural uteri is still the usual plural beside uteruses.^[11][10][14] The adjective uterine is older in English, recorded before 1425 in the sense "born of the same mother"; its anatomical sense dates from 1615.^[3][15]

Timeline

• before 1398 – the womb, in Trevisa.^[8][3]
• 1615 – the organ in which a fetus develops, in Crooke.^[2][7]
• 1682 – in botany, a pericarp.^[2]
• 1753 – the corresponding organ in lower animals, fishes or birds.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The hollow muscular organ in the pelvis of female mammals in which the fetus develops before birth; the womb.^[11][10][2]
2. A corresponding organ in other animals, in which eggs or young develop.^[11][13][2]

Word family

• uterine

Related words

• hysteria
• hysterectomy
• in utero
• womb

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d e Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
8. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
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 Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
15. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press