Aortic

How to spell aortic

6 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce aortic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does aortic mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to the aorta, the main artery carrying blood away from the heart.

Aortic in a sentence

• The surgeon repaired the aortic valve during the operation.

• An aortic aneurysm requires urgent medical attention.

Where does aortic come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word comes from aorta, which English took from the Greek aorte, the name for the body's great artery leading from the heart. The Greek term was built on the verb aeirein, meaning 'to lift up' or 'to hang', so aorte literally described something that is 'hung up' or suspended, a reference to the way the large vessels appear to hang from the heart. The philosopher Aristotle is usually credited with applying the word to the main artery in his anatomical writings. Latin carried the noun forward as aorta, and medical English adopted both the noun and its adjective form during the rise of scientific anatomy in the 1500s and 1600s. The adjective aortic was formed in the usual way by adding -ic, and the spelling trap lives entirely in that opening 'ao' pairing, two vowels run together where writers instinctically expect just one.

How the word is built

• aort- (from Greek aorte, the great artery)
• -ic (adjective suffix: relating to)