metastasize

The story

1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*steh₂-“to stand (up)”
2. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*meth₂
3. Ancient Greek · derived fromμετάστασις“change; removal; (medicine) movement of disease, pain, etc., from one part of the body to another”
4. Koine Greek · derived fromμετάστασις“(rhetoric) rapid or sudden transition from one argument, point, or topic to another”
5. Late Latin · derived frommetastasis“(rhetoric) rapid or sudden transition from one argument, point, or topic to another”
6. English todaymetastasize

From metastasis + -ize (suffix forming verbs meaning to do things denoted by the adjectives or nouns the suffix is attached to). Metastasis is a learned borrowing from Late Latin metastasis (“(rhetoric) rapid or sudden transition from one argument, point, or topic to another”), and from its etymons Koine Greek μετάστασις (metástasis, “(rhetoric) rapid or sudden transition from one argument, point, or topic to another”) and Ancient Greek μετάστασις (metástasis, “change; removal; (medicine) movement of disease, pain, etc., from one part of the body to another”), from μετᾰ- (metă-, prefix denoting change in condition or position) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *meth₂) + στᾰ́σῐς (stắsĭs, “condition, state; position”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *steh₂- (“to stand (up)”)), modelled after μεθιστάναι (methistánai, “to change; to remove”). The use of French métastase (“metastasis”) to refer to the spread of cancer was coined in 1829 by the French gynecologist Joseph Récamier (1774–1852).

Words from the same roots