ἀορτή

Aortē appears in Aristotle's biological works from the 4th century BCE. The word's exact etymology is disputed. It may come from aeirein (to raise, to lift up, to hang), suggesting that the aorta is the vessel from which the heart is suspended. Aristotle described the aorta as arising from the heart and distributing blood to the rest of the body, though he believed the heart was the seat of intelligence (the brain, he thought, cooled the blood) and that arteries carried air, not blood.

Galen of Pergamon corrected Aristotle's physiology but kept his vocabulary. Galen demonstrated that arteries carry blood, not air, by cutting them in living animals and observing the blood flow. He described the aorta's course from the heart, through the chest, and into the abdomen with remarkable accuracy. The word aorta traveled from Aristotle through Galen into Arabic medicine (as al-aburṭā or al-abharī) and back into Latin through medieval translation.

The aorta is the largest artery in the human body. It is about the diameter of a garden hose — roughly 2.5 centimeters across — and it carries oxygenated blood from the left ventricle of the heart to every organ in the body. The pressure inside the aorta is the blood pressure measured at your doctor's office. When the aorta fails — through aneurysm, dissection, or rupture — the result is usually fatal within minutes.

English adopted aorta from Latin medical terminology in the 16th century. The word has no everyday English equivalent. There is no Anglo-Saxon word for the aorta because pre-scientific English had no concept that required one. The word entered the language only because anatomy became a discipline.