vertigo

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin vertīgō (“a turning or whirling round; dizziness”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from vertō (“to turn”),^{[2][4][5][7][8]} with the noun suffix -īgō.^[9] Etymonline traces the verb to Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to turn, bend”).^[4][5] The OED compares French vertigo and Spanish vertigo, beside vertige, Portuguese vertigem and Italian vertigine.^[2] The adjective vertiginous is from vertīginōsus, formed on the same noun.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Dizziness, as a medical condition: the Middle English Dictionary's first quotation is from a translation of Guy de Chauliac's surgery, dated before 1425, where it is named among the signs that follow a wound to the membranes of the brain.^[11][3] The OED's first record is from 1528, in Paynell's translation of Arnaldus de Villa Nova,^[2][12] and several dictionaries date the word to the 16th century.^[10][13][9]

Semantic evolution

The word came into English as a physicians' term, used at first without an article;^[2] the vertigo is found from 1607, in Ben Jonson's Volpone, and a vertigo with a plural from before 1640.^[2] Etymonline notes that a native name for the condition in the early 15th century was turn-sick.^[4] From 1635, in George Wither's emblem book, it was used figuratively of a confused, giddy state of mind or of affairs,^[2][6][12] while from 1851, in De Quincey, it was used of the act of whirling round itself, which is close to the original Latin sense.^[2][3] Johnson (1755) defined it as a giddiness, a sense of turning in the head, and quoted Quincy's description of still objects seeming to turn, with a fear of falling.^[14] Modern medical usage distinguishes vertigo, in which the world seems to revolve or one seems to revolve oneself, from mere light-headedness.^[15][13]

Timeline

• before 1425 – dizziness, in a translation of Chauliac's surgery.^[11][3]
• 1528 – vertigo as a disorder of balance, without an article.^[2]
• 1607 – with the article, the vertigo, in Ben Jonson.^[2]
• 1635 – figurative, a disordered state of mind or of things.^[2][12]
• 1851 – the act of whirling round and round.^[2][12]

Meanings

Noun

1. (medicine) A sensation that one's surroundings, or oneself, are spinning, caused by a disorder of the sense of balance and often leading to a loss of balance: Her vertigo returned whenever she turned her head quickly.^[15][13][6]
2. Dizziness or giddiness in general, especially when looking down from a height.^[15][13]
3. A confused or bewildered state of mind, or of affairs, in which everything seems to be whirling.^[15][2][6]

Word family

• vertiginous

Related words

• vertex
• verse
• version
• convert
• revert
• vortex

Usage notes

The plural is vertigoes or, less often, the Latin vertigines.^[15][13] The OED notes that the pronunciation was long debated: Walker (1797) argued for stress on the first syllable, but the fashionable pronunciation seems to have stressed the second, and Smart (1836–40) gave only that, even though it went against English analogy.^[2]

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 c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ 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)
12. ^ a b c d Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
13. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster