Etymologically
Log in

tumor

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 19 October 2026 at 19:49. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈtʊ.mɔr][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈtuː.mor][1]

Forms

tumor m (genitive tumōris); third declension[1] The Rhetorica ad Herennium has the nominative tumōs.[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin tumeō (“to swell”) + -or.[2][1] De Vaan traces tumeō to Proto-Italic *tum-ē- and Proto-Indo-European *tum-eh₁- (“to be swelling”), comparing Middle Welsh tyfu (“to grow”) and Sanskrit तुम्र (túmra-, “strong, thick”).[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cato has it first, prescribing crushed cabbage for wounds and swellings.[2][3]

Semantic evolution

It is the state of being swollen, as of Pallas's cheeks puffed out by playing the pipe in Propertius, and in medicine a morbid swelling of a part of the body.[2][4] Ovid uses it of a rise in the ground, and the Hercules Oetaeus of the swell of the sea.[2] Figuratively it is an inflamed state of mind, anger or passion, a ferment of public affairs, as in Cicero's letters, and conceit or arrogance.[2][4] In rhetoric it is bombast, inflated diction, which the Rhetorica ad Herennium warns against.[2] Church Latin keeps the senses of tumour, pride and bombast.[5] English took it as tumor in the early 15th century, for a morbid swelling.[6]

Timeline

  • 234–149 BC – Cato of swellings treated with cabbage.[2][7]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of a state of public ferment.[2][7]
  • 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid of a rise in the ground.[2][7]
  • early 15th century – English tumor is borrowed from it.[6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A swollen state; a swelling, tumour; a rounded rise in the ground.[2][4][1]
  2. The swell of the sea or of a river in flood.[2][1]
  3. Figuratively, excitement, passion, anger; a ferment of affairs.[2][1]
  4. Conceit, arrogance.[2][5][1]
  5. (rhetoric) Bombast, inflated style.[2][5][1]

Word family

  • tumōrōsus

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  4. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  6. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de