Cardiovascular

How to spell cardiovascular

14 letters · 6 syllables

How to pronounce cardiovascular

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cardiovascular mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to the heart and the blood vessels, or to their combined function.

Cardiovascular in a sentence

• Regular exercise improves cardiovascular health and lowers blood pressure.

• The surgeon specialises in cardiovascular disease and bypass operations.

Where does cardiovascular come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This is a compound coined by medicine in the nineteenth century from two ancient roots. The first half comes from the Greek kardia, meaning 'heart', the same root that gives us cardiac and cardiology. The second half comes from the Latin vasculum, a 'small vessel', which is a diminutive of vas meaning 'a container or duct'; in anatomy it refers to the blood vessels, and it also lies behind the word vascular. Stitched together, cardiovascular literally describes the system of the heart and the blood vessels it serves. The blend of a Greek front and a Latin back is part of what makes the spelling tricky: the smooth -io- joint hides a syllable, and the unstressed -cular ending is easy to slip on.

How the word is built

• cardio- (from Greek kardia, heart)
• vascul- (from Latin vasculum, small vessel)
• -ar (relating to)