Origin and history of clinical

clinical(adj.)

1780, "pertaining to hospital patients or hospital care," from clinic + -al (2). Meaning "coldly dispassionate" (like a medical report) is recorded from 1928. The earlier adjective was clinic "of or pertaining to the sick-bed" (1620s). Related: Clinically.

also from 1780

Entries linking to clinical

clinic(n.)

1620s, "bedridden person, one confined to his bed by sickness," from French clinique (17c.), from Latin clinicus "physician that visits patients in their beds," from Greek klinike (techne) "(practice) at the sickbed," from klinikos "of the bed," from kline "bed, couch, that on which one lies," from suffixed form of PIE root *klei- "to lean."

Also "one who defers baptism until the death-bed" (1660s). Sense of "private hospital" is from 1884, from German Klinik in this sense, itself from French clinique, via the notion of "bedside medical education, examination of a patient by an instructor in the presence of students." The modern sense thus reverses the classical one, in which the "clinic" came to the patient. General sense of "conference for group instruction in something" is from 1919.

-al(2)

suffix forming nouns of action from verbs, mostly from Latin and French, meaning "act of ______ing" (such as survival, referral), Middle English -aille, from French feminine singular -aille, from Latin -alia, neuter plural of adjective suffix -alis, also used in English as a noun suffix. Nativized in English and used with Germanic verbs (as in bestowal, betrothal).

*klei-

Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to lean."

It might form all or part of: acclivity; anticline; clemency; client; climate; climax; cline; clinic; clinical; clino-; clitellum; clitoris; decline; declivity; enclitic; heteroclite; incline; ladder; lean (v.); lid; low (n.2) "small hill, eminence;" matroclinous; patroclinous; polyclinic; proclitic; proclivity; recline; synclinal; thermocline.

It might also be the source of: Sanskrit srayati "leans," sritah "leaning;" Old Persian cay "to lean;" Lithuanian šlyti "to slope," šlieti "to lean;" Latin clinare "to lean, bend," clivus "declivity," inclinare "cause to bend," declinare "bend down, turn aside;" Greek klinein "to cause to slope, slant, incline;" Old Irish cloin "crooked, wrong;" Middle Irish cle, Welsh cledd "left," literally "slanting").