bronchus

Forms

bronchus m (genitive bronchī); second declension^[1][2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek βρόγχος (brónkhos, “windpipe, throat”).^[1][3] Beekes connects the Greek word with βρόξαι (bróxai) and βρόχθος (brókhthos, “throat”) and takes its nasal for a Pre-Greek feature, so that the word would be Pre-Greek.^[4] Köbler mentions instead, with a question mark, Proto-Indo-European *gʷerh₃- (“to swallow”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Caelius Aurelianus, in the 5th century AD, speaks of “the windpipe, which the Greeks call bronchus”.^[1][2][3]

Semantic evolution

It remained a medical word for the windpipe.^[1][2] Conte derives Italian bronchi from it as a Late Latin word.^[2] English adopted bronchus in 1706 for either of the two main branches of the windpipe.^[5]

Timeline

• 5th century AD – Caelius Aurelianus uses it in his work on chronic diseases.^[1][3]
• 1706 – English borrows it as bronchus.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (anatomy) The windpipe, trachea.^[1][2]

Related words

• bronchia

Usage notes

Georges and Gaffiot also list bronchus as a manuscript spelling of brocchus “having projecting teeth”, a separate word.^[6][7]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
2. ^ a b c d e Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
3. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.