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Origin and history of rheum

rheum(n.)

late 14c., reume, "watery fluid or humid matter in the eyes, nose, or mouth" (including tears, saliva, mucous discharge from the nostrils), from Old French reume "a head-cold" (13c., Modern French rhume) and directly from Latin rheuma, reuma, from Greek rheuma "discharge from the body, flux; a stream, current, flood, a flowing," literally "that which flows," from rhein "to flow" (from PIE root *sreu- "to flow").

In old medicine it was conceived as draining from the higher to lower parts of the body and causing ailments if out of balance. Also from late 14c. as "a head-cold, catarrh." The -h- was restored in early Modern English.

also from late 14c.

Entries linking to rheum

rheumatic(adj.)

late 14c., reumatik, "of the nature of, consisting of, or pertaining to rheum," from Old French reumatique (Modern French rhumatique), from Latin rheumaticus (Medieval Latin reumaticus) "troubled with rheum," from Greek rheumatikos, from rheuma "discharge from the body" (see rheum).

By 1738 with the meaning "suffering from rheumatism;" the sense of "pertaining to or caused by rheumatism" is by 1886.

rheumatism(n.)

1680s as a name applied to various similar diseases causing inflammation and pain in the joints, from Late Latin rheumatismus, from Greek rheumatismos, from rheumatizein "suffer from the flux," from rheuma "a discharge from the body" (see rheum). "The meaning of a disease of the joints is first recorded in 1688, because rheumatism was thought to be caused by an excessive flow of rheum into a joint thereby stretching ligaments" [Barnhart].

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