Etymology
The adjective cruciate is from the Latin crux, crucis, meaning "cross".
In Classical Latin, the verb cruciare means "to torture". By the time in the Late Latin period when Latin medical terminology was being established, this old meaning of cruciare seems to have fallen out of use in common speech, and the word was re-invented with the meaning "arrange in cross shape". Use of "cruciat-" to refer to torture is now obsolete in English, but this old usage is shown in the common English word excruciating, and in the "Cruciatus" curse in the Harry Potter fictional scenario.
Read more about this topic: Cruciate Ligament
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)