Etymology

perimenopause

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Today it means: The physiological stage that women approaching menopause go through when, due to hormonal changes, they progress from their usual pattern of menstruation through a phase of atypical menstruation, and finally cease menstruating. Perimenopause ends when a woman has not menstruated for a year. Full definition →

English menopause ← French ménopause ← Latin pausa
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*per-
  2. Ancient Greekπερῐ́ (perĭ́)
  3. Englishperi-
  4. Proto-Indo-European*med-
  5. Proto-Indo-European*meh₁-?
  6. Proto-Indo-European*mḗh₁n̥s
  7. Proto-Hellenic*méns
  8. Ancient Greekμήν (mḗn)
  9. Frenchméno-
  10. Ancient Greekπαύω (paúō)
  11. Ancient Greekπαῦσις (paûsis)
  12. Latinpausa
  13. Frenchménopause
  14. Englishmenopause
  15. English todayperimenopause

From peri- (“near”) + menopause. The term has been in use since at least 1931, when it was used in Joseph Bolivar De Lee and Jacob Pearl Greenhill's book, Obstetrics: Gynecology.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.