physiologia

Forms

physiologia f (genitive physiologiae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek φυσιολογία (phusiología, “natural science”).^[2][3][4] The Greek word is built on φύσις (phúsis, “nature”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Cicero, who introduces it as a Greek term: in On the Nature of the Gods he glosses it id est naturae rationem, “that is, the theory of nature”, and in On Divination he speaks of the study of nature “which the Greeks call physiologia”.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Latin it remained a learned word for natural science or natural philosophy, the inquiry into the nature of things.^[2][3][1]

In New Latin it took on the narrower meaning of physiology, the study of the functions of living bodies.^[1] English borrowed the word in the 1560s, at first in the older sense of natural philosophy.^[5]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it, glossing it as the theory of nature.^[2][3][4]
• 1560s – English borrows it as physiology, first for natural philosophy.^[5]
• New Latin – It comes to mean physiology.^[1]

Meanings

Noun

1. Natural science, natural philosophy, the study of nature.^[2][3][1]
2. (New Latin) Physiology.^[1]

Related words

• physiologicus
• physicus
• English physiology

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com