For various reasons, I thought I would investigate a few disease-related words to find out where they come from.<\/p>\n
Let’s start with virus<\/strong>, which comes from the Latin v\u012brus<\/em> (poison, slime, venom), from the Proto-Italic *weisos<\/em>, from Proto-Indo-European *wis\u00f3s<\/em> (fluidity, slime, poison). Virus used to mean venom as well, apparently [source<\/a>].<\/p>\n Disease<\/strong> comes from the Anglo-Norman desese \/ disaise<\/em>, from the Old French desaise<\/em> (disease, deformity, melancholy), from des-<\/em> (apart, reversal, removal) and aise<\/em> (ease – lack of anxiety) [source<\/a>].<\/p>\n In Middle English words for disease included adle<\/strong>, which comes from the Old English \u0101dl<\/em> (disease, sickness); and co(a)the<\/strong>, from the Old English co\u00feu<\/em> (disease). The latter continued to be used in some English dialects as coath<\/em> (sickness, disease, pestilence) [source<\/a>]<\/p>\n Pandemic<\/strong> comes from the Ancient Greek \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03b4\u03b7\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2<\/em> (p\u00e1nd\u0113mos – of\/belonging to all the people, public) and -ic<\/em> (of\/pertaining to) [source<\/a>].<\/p>\n Epidemic<\/strong> comes from the French \u00e9pid\u00e9mique<\/em> (epidemic), from the Latin epidemia<\/em> (epidemic), from Ancient Greek \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03b4\u03ae\u03bc\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2<\/em> (epid\u1e17mios), from \u1f10\u03c0\u03af<\/em> (ep\u00ed – upon) and \u03b4\u1fc6\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2<\/em> (d\u00eamos – people) [source<\/a>].<\/p>\n