suffix indicating state, condition, or quality; also activity or the result of it (as in victory, history, etc.), via Anglo-French and Old French -é, from Latin -ia, Greek -ia, from PIE *-a-, suffix forming abstract or collective nouns. It is etymologically identical with -ia and the second element in -cy, -ery, -logy, etc.
also synesthesia, "sensation in one part of the body produced by stimulus in another," 1881, in some cases via French, from Modern Latin, from Greek syn- "together" (see syn-) + aisthēsis "feeling" (from PIE root *au- "to perceive") + abstract noun ending -ia. Also psychologically, of the senses (colors that seem to the perceiver to having odor, etc.), from 1891. Related: Synaesthetic (adj.).
1751 in botany, in reference to a class of flowers having 20 or more stamens; 1809 of human relationships (implied in polyandrian), from poly- "many" andr-, stem of aner "man, husband" (from PIE root *ner- (2) "man"), which is used in botany to mean "stamen, having stamens," + -ia "condition of." Late Greek polyandria meant "populousness," a polyandrion was "place where many assemble." Related: Polyandric.
1721, "loss of feeling," medical Latin, from Greek anaisthēsia "want of feeling or perception, lack of sensation (to pleasure or pain)," abstract noun from an- "without" (see an- (1)) + aisthēsis "feeling," from PIE root *au- "to perceive." For the abstract noun ending, see -ia. As "a procedure for the prevention of pain in surgical operations," from 1846. Aesthesia "capacity for feeling" is attested in English from 1853, perhaps a back-formation.
phylum of stinging invertebrates, 1860, with abstract noun ending -ia + Latinized form of Greek knidē "nettle," from stem of knizein "to scratch scrape," which is of uncertain origin. Beekes compares Lithuanian knìsti "to scratch, itch, tickle," knisù "to grub up;" Latvian knidet "to itch, geminate, creep;" Old Norse hnita "to push against;" Middle Irish cned "wound." Related: Cnidarian.
genus of parasitic plants native to Java and Sumatra, 1820, named for Sir T. Stamford Raffles (1781-1826), British governor of Sumatra, who introduced it to the West, + abstract noun ending -ia. He reports the native name was petimum sikinlili "Devil's betel-box." Raffles as the typical name of a gentleman who engages in burglary or other crime, an educated renegade, is from A.J. Raffles, hero of "The Amateur Cracksman" (1899) and later books by E.W. Hornung.
parasitic micro-organism, 1919, from German, coined 1916 in Modern Latin by H. da Rocha-Lima in honor of U.S. pathologist H.T. Ricketts (1871-1910), who first identified it in 1909 and died of typhus as a result of his contact with it, + abstract noun ending -ia. The bacteria causes typhus and Rocky Mountain spotted fever, but is unrelated by pathology or etymology to rickets (q.v.), which is the result of vitamin D deficiency. The surname is a development from Rickard, variant of Richard, or else from the diminutive form Ricot.
region at the southern extremity of South America, with -ia + Patagon, name given by Europeans to the Tehuelche people who inhabited the coasts of the region, sometimes said to mean literally "large-foot," from Spanish and Portuguese pata "paw, animal foot" (see patten) in reference to the people's llama-skin shoes. But elsewhere said to be from Patagon, name of a dog-headed monster in the prose romance "Amadís de Gaula" (1508) by Garci Ordóñez de Montalvo (which also might have yielded California). Related: Patagonian.
