ἐλεφαντίασις

Forms

ἐλεφᾰντῐ́ᾱσῐς (elephantíāsis) f (genitive ἐλεφᾰντῐᾱ́σεως); third declension^[1]

Etymology

From the verb from Ancient Greek ἐλεφαντιάω (elephantiáō, “to suffer from elephantiasis”) with the suffix from Ancient Greek ἐλεφαντιάω (elephantiáō) + -σις (-sis), which forms nouns of action and state.^[1][2] The verb comes from ἐλέφας (eléphas) “elephant”: Pape explains the name by the likeness of the diseased skin to an elephant's hide.^[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in the medical writers of the 1st century AD: Dioscorides names the disease in his Materia medica, and Celsus, writing in Latin, uses the Greek word.^[5][6][7]

Semantic evolution

The physicians used it for several kinds of leprosy, above all the tuberculous kind, the “elephantiasis of the Greeks”.^[6] Galen lists elephantiases beside leprosies and identifies the disease with the “Phoenician disease”, and Hesychius glosses it as a kind of leprosy.^[6][8] Plutarch mentions it in his Table Talk.^[5][3] A treatise on it went under the name of Democritus.^[6]

It was borrowed as Latin elephantiasis.^[9] Medieval vernacular Greek kept it as a medical term for a swelling of the limbs,^[10] and Modern Greek ελεφαντίαση (elefantíasi), a learned form, names the gross thickening of the skin and the tissue under it in the limbs and genitals.^[11]

Timeline

• 1st century AD – Dioscorides and Celsus use it for a kind of leprosy.^[5][6]
• 1st–2nd century AD – Plutarch mentions it in his Table Talk.^[5][3]
• 2nd century AD – Galen and Aretaeus describe it.^[6][2]
• 1100–1669 – Vernacular Greek uses it for an overgrowth of the limbs.^[10]
• Modern Greek – The learned form ελεφαντίαση is the medical term.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. (medicine) elephantiasis, a severe kind of leprosy in which the skin thickens like an elephant's.^{[5][6][3][12]}

Related words

• ἐλέφας (eléphas)
• Latin elephantiasis

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Bailly, Anatole (2020), Dictionnaire grec-français, Bailly 2020 Hugo Chávez ed., ed. Gérard Gréco et al.
3. ^ a b c d Pape, Wilhelm (1914), Griechisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 3rd ed., rev. Max Sengebusch, Braunschweig: Vieweg
4. ^ Woordenboek Grieks/Nederlands (2012–), Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, https://woordenboekgrieks.nl
5. ^ a b c d e Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
7. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
8. ^ Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)
9. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
10. ^ a b Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
11. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
12. ^ Charbonnet, André (2025), Chæréphon, v4.7: supplement to Bailly from papyri, inscriptions and recent lexica