Word History: Diabetes is named for one of its distressing symptoms. The disease was known to the Greeks as diabētēs, a word derived from the verb diabainein, made up of the prefix dia-, "across, apart," and the word bainein, "to walk, stand." The verb diabeinein meant "to stride, walk, or stand with legs asunder"; hence, its derivative diabētēs meant "one that straddles," or specifically "a compass, siphon." The sense "siphon" gave rise to the use of diabētēs as the name for a disease involving the discharge of excessive amounts of urine. Diabetes is first recorded in English, in the form diabete, in a medical text written around 1425.