Etymology

placenta

pla·cen·ta
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Today it means: An organ in most mammals during gestation that supplies food and oxygen to the foetus and passes back waste. It is on the wall of the uterus and links to the foetus through the umbilical cord. It is expelled after birth. Full definition →

New Latin placenta
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The story

  1. New Latin · learned borrowing fromplacenta
  2. English todayplacenta

Learned borrowing from New Latin placenta (literally “flat cake”), an ellipsis of phrases such as placenta uterī (literally “womb cake”) and placenta uterīna (literally “uterine cake”), because of the flat round shape of the afterbirth. Doublet of palacsinta and palatschinke.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.