From the history of European medical terminology: the Greek word κόλον, its etymology and derivatives

Abstrakt

The article introduces the Greek anatomical term κόλον in context of its internal structure and etymological relations in other Indo-European branches. The studied anatomical terms are widely discussed from the point of view of their semantics. The second part follows the fate of Greek κόλον, when it was adapted into other languages, first into Latin. The Latin adaptation colon, reinterpreted as the indeclinable n-stem, became an integral part of the medieval medicine terminology. From Latin it is adapted into Frech, later into English. Finally the most frequent medicine term consisting of colon is discussed, namely two variants of the compound coloscopy vs. colonoscopy.