hypochondria: [16] Originally, hypochondria was an anatomical term, denoting the ‘area of the abdomen beneath the ribs’. It comes via Latin from Greek hupokhóndrion, a compound noun formed from the prefix hupo- ‘under’ and khóndros ‘cartilage’. This particular part of the body was formerly supposed to be the seat of melancholy, and so in the 17th century the word came to be used for ‘low spirits, depression’. The modern sense ‘belief of being ill’ originally be longed to the derived hypochondriasis [18], but was transferred in the 19th century to hypochondria.
