borrowed from French
épidémique, going back to Middle French, from
epidemie "disease affecting a large number of individuals" +
-ique 1-ic; Middle French
epidemie, earlier
epydimie, borrowed from Medieval Latin
epidēmia, derivative (from feminine singular or neuter plural) of Late Latin
epidēmius "widespread, prevalent (of a disease)," borrowed from Greek
epidḗmios "within the country, among the people, prevalent (of a disease)," from
epi- epi- +
-dēmios, adjective derivative of
dêmos "district, country, people" — more at
demo-
Note:
The notion that the word epidemic (adjective or noun) is owed directly to Hippocrates—or is, to put it more circumspectly, part of the Hippocratic Corpus—is somewhat illusory, a product of the words used in English translations. For example, in W. H. S. Jones' translation of De aere aquis et locis (Loeb Classical Library, 1923), the following passage (4.32-34) implies a distinction between "endemic" and "epidemic": "For men these diseases are endemic, besides there are epidemic diseases which may prevail through the change of the seasons." In the Greek text, however, "endemic diseases" are nosḗmata epichōría "illnesses of the country, native illnesses," while "epidemic diseases" translates ti pánkoinon, literally, "something common," i.e., "common or general diseases." Derivatives based on epi- and dêmos can be found in the Hippocratic texts (e.g., "Kaì gàr állōs tò nósēma epídēmon ên," Epidemics 1.14; "Tà mèn epidēmḗsanta nosḗmata taûta," Epidemics 3.3), though epídēmon means simply "common, prevalent," and epidēmḗsanta "having become prevalent." The title Epidḗmia, conventionally translated "Epidemics," for the works in the Hippocratic Corpus dealing with seasonal diseases and case histories, is presumably post-classical.
