Searching for the term "Nursing" in Greek dictionaries and encyclopedias from the establishment of the Modern Greek state until 2002

The term “nursing” starts to be used in the Greek nursing field during the 40s and 50s, however, it continued to be almost unknown among the members of the Greek society. Thus, the search of the start of the inclusion of the term nursing in the Greek dictionaries and encyclopaedias is interesting for Greek nurses. Aim: The search of the term “nursing” in Greek dictionaries and encyclopedias. Material and method: An historical research was conducted for the period of 1833until the year 2002. Sixty dictionaries and encyclopedias were found ans studied. Results: The first publications of this period are; the “Dictionary of Greek Language” (Vienna, 1836), the “Encyclopedia Lexicon” (Smyrna, 1864) and the “Encyclopedic Lexicon” (Eleftheroudakis, Athens 1890-1891). The term “nursing” it was not included in those publications. In the 20th century the publications of 54 dictionaries and encyclopedias dating 1900 to 1999 were found. In most of those publications the term “nursing” is not mentioned, and it strted aping only in the 90s in just 3 sources; the “Encyclopedia Papyros Larousse Britanicca” (Athens, 1991), the “Modern Lexicon of Greek Language” (Patakis Publications, 1991), reprint of “Greek Lexicon” Tegopoulos-Fytrakis (1999) and the “Lexicon of Modern Greek” by Babiniotis (1998). In the 21st century two dictionaries were found, in which the word “nursing” is not included, while it is mentioned in the “Big Lexicon of Modern Greek” (Bousnaki, 2002) and in the reprint of Babiniotis’ Dictionary in 2002. Conclusions: The term “nursing” has started to be included in the dictionaries, however, more effort needs to be paid by the nursing authorities towards to the correct attribution of the term in publications

Keywords: Term Nursing, Greek, Dictionary, Encyclopedia