About a word 'complication'
March 9, 2022 7:35 PM   Subscribe

Since when did the word 'complication' has the medical meaning? Could you name the source? Although I looked up the word in some etymological dictionaries I couldn't find it.Thank you for helping my English study!
posted by mizukko to Writing & Language (4 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: The Oxford English Dictionary's definition 4b covers this:
A complicated or entangled state of relations, matters, or affairs; a complicated mass or stucture. Also (Medicine), an additional disorder or condition that develops during the course of an existing one; frequently in plural.
The earliest cite is from 1647 in Thomas May's The History of the Parliament of England. The sample text is "So full of mixtures, involutions, and complications, as nothing is cleare, nothing sincere, in any of their proceedings."

The cite from 1697's Treatise Consumpt. by T. Nevett is more clearly about the medical sense of the word. It's sample text is "With a complication of Convulsive and Epileptick Fits."
posted by mmascolino at 7:47 PM on March 9, 2022 [7 favorites]


The fancy word for medical complications is 'sequelae,' in case that is useful in your project.
posted by dum spiro spero at 11:26 PM on March 9, 2022 [4 favorites]


Best answer: mmascolino has it, but what I think is also quite interesting is that that use of complication in medicine predates most of the other uses. The only other use before 1647 is listed by the OED as an obsolete usage "The action of folding together; the condition of being folded together. Obsolete."
1611 R. Cotgrave Dict. French & Eng. Tongues Complication, a complication, or folding together.
1646 Sir T. Browne Pseudodoxia Epidemica v. xxi. 266 The complication or pectination of the fingers was an Hieroglyphick of impediment.

Complication in terms of "Something that complicates or adds difficulties; a complicating factor." is early C20th.
posted by biffa at 3:16 AM on March 10, 2022


The Oxford English Dictionary is a good place to find answers to questions like this, since it's organized on "historical principles" - that is, it gives the meanings of a word in the order that they occurred historically and has citations for each meaning. See mmascolino's answer. You may have access through a library.
posted by madcaptenor at 6:58 AM on March 10, 2022 [1 favorite]


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