The word edema is related to the name of the Greek tragic hero Oedipus the king, whose father bound and pierced his feet as a child and left him to die. Oedipus comes from the Greek verb oidein (to...

The word edema is related to the name of the Greek tragic hero Oedipus the king, whose father bound and pierced his feet as a child and left him to die. Oedipus comes from the Greek verb oidein (to become swollen) and literally translated means swollen foot. After a bizarre series of events, Oedipus kills his father and marries his own mother. Freud named his Oedipus complex theory after this story. The oe in Oedipus was later changed to e, and the modern English medical term became edema: Edema/tous is the adjectival form for swollen.