Digestion
/daɪˈdʒestʃən/noun
The process by which food is broken down in the body and absorbed.
Did you know?Digestion traces back to Latin digestio, from dīgerere, meaning “to distribute, separate, arrange,” so the word originally carried the idea of orderly sorting rather than eating itself.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*gʰers-
“to separate, to scatter”
Latin
Latin
dis- + gerere
“to carry apart, distribute, arrange”
Late Latin
Latin
digestio
“a distributing, arranging; digestion”
Old French
Old French
digestion
“digestion; the process of assimilating food”
Middle English
English
digestioun
“digestion; the bodily process of assimilating food”
Modern English
English
digestion
“the process by which food is broken down and absorbed”