The Ancient Word Roots of Crisis

Hello,

Recently I’ve been exploring modern words with ancient roots and I was surprised to find Hippocrates (yes, the one that gave us the oath) taking a hand in the history of the word crisis. Here’s a quick extract from “Modern Words with Old Roots” (copyright 2022) to explain what I’m talking about —

After two years of pandemic news followed by the outbreak of war in Europe and resulting energy issues (and that’s before I get started on climate change) when I hear the word crisis on the news, I think – “oh no, not another one”. It is easy to believe such things only happen in our own lifetimes, but of course that’s false. The word crisis has been around for a very long time.

Crisis literally means “the ability to judge” and entered English in the early 1400s via Latin but ultimately from the Greek word krisis (turning point in disease). Krisis comes from a root word krei (to sieve, hence to discriminate or decide).

Yes, crisis started in a medical context. Hippocrates (the ancient Greek “Father of Medicine” who inspired the hippocratic oath) believed all diseases had ebbing and flowing tides of the body’s humours (blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm – in case you’re wondering). These tidal days he called critical days and the tide itself was a crisis because the physician could judge if the patient was taking a turn for good or ill.

By the 1600s, crisis was being used in a non-medical sense too, and still is today. The Germans, who have some wonderfully direct words, created my favourite crisis term – Torschlusspanik – which translates literally as a “door shut panic”, the fear of being on the wrong side of a closing door, to perfectly describe a mid-life crisis.

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Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,
Grace (@Wordfoolery)