Period Diabetes was [Sca-cooks] snarky remarks about eating habits

[James Prescott]

At 07:54 -0600 2003-11-26, Terry Decker wrote:
> One of my references specifies that the Greek diabetes (with carats over the
> e's) from the verb "diabeinein" meaning roughly "to walk straddling a
> siphon," fairly obviously a reference to the increased urination.
> 
> Apparently, diabetes appears in an English medical text as "diabete" around
> 1425.
> 
> I haven't checked the OED yet, so take the above with a grain of salt.


According to the OED the Greek word for diabetes ("diabetes" with
carats) means "a passer through; a siphon".  The earliest OED citation 
in my edition is 1541.  There's no reference that I can find to the 
verb in the OED.

In my Greek lexicon (Liddell and Scott) the same word ("diabetes") 
is given the meaning "a pair of compasses", with no explicit reference 
to siphon.  This word is closely related to the verb "diabainw" which 
is given the meaning "to make a stride, stand with the legs apart, 
and so to stand firm, of warriors", with no explicit reference to 
passing through (though there is a second meaning "to step across, 
step over, carry across" which is close).


The connection between the OED and the Greek original is presumably 
that a siphon has a similar inverted 'U' shape to a pair of compasses.


My French etymological dictionary (Rey et al) gives "who
crosses" as the meaning of the Greek ("diabetes"), and says 
that it also means a pair of compasses, a plumb line, or a 
siphon "before later designating diabetes (the disease)".  
Their earliest reference (presumably for one of the non-
disease meanings) is 1520.


The connection between the Greek meaning and the disease is 
perhaps through the legs-apart stance of a man urinating.


Thorvald