Kilo Lingo

Line drawing of pulmo
Coloured illustration of pulmo
#2539 of 5,000 Core 5000

Translation

lung

Word origin

From Latin pulmo, a lung, cousin to Greek pleumon and to the pulmonary of English medicine. The Germanic word lung comes from a different image entirely, the light one, because lungs float in water.

Origin
Latin
Root
pulmo
English cognates
pulmonary, pneumonia

Examples

.

We have two lungs in the chest.

.

The doctor listened to my lungs.

.

The cold air entered his lungs.

Clinical, plain, and unmarked. is the anatomical organ, the word a doctor uses and the word a biology textbook uses, with no figurative sense attached. Esperanto keeps the same register that stomako and koro keep: the organ is named neutrally, and the metaphors get built separately when they are wanted.

The vocabulary around it writes itself, because the affixes do the work.Spiri is to breathe; enspiri is to breathe in and elspiri to breathe out, straight from the prepositions and . Spiro is a breath, o is breathing as an ongoing activity, and pulma is the adjective, so pulmonary disease is pulma o. This is the point at which a learner who has done the affix track stops needing a medical dictionary.

Two lungs, and says so. English talks about "the lungs" as a single system; Esperanto is happy to count them, and or are both ordinary. Position them with brusto, the chest, and you have enough to describe where a breath goes.

Where this fits

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Esperanto · Free printables

pulmo: worksheet, infographic and listicle

Free printable study downloads for the Esperanto word "pulmo" (lung): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.

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This word is part of lesson 51.