Chylus

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A milky fluid rich in fats that is absorbed by the small intestine and carried through the lymphatic vessels during digestion
2. The whitish lymph containing emulsified fat that lacteals collect from the gut after a meal and pass into the bloodstream
3. Digestive lymph, milky in appearance because of fat droplets, drained from the intestinal villi into the lymphatic system

Etymology: "Chylus" is the older spelling of "chyle," the milky fluid that the small intestine absorbs from digested fat and carries into the lymphatic system. Its roots reach back to ancient Greek, where "khulos" meant simply the juice of an animal or plant, with no special link to milk or digestion. The Greek word was taken into Late Latin as "chylus," and the sense narrowed as physicians applied it to the particular whitish fluid they observed in the body. French then carried the word into scholarly use, and English borrowed it from there. The spelling "chylus" kept the Latin ending that English medical writers favoured, before "chyle" became the standard form. The word's history thus runs from a general word for juice to a precise anatomical term.