'Respiratory' is Latin for 'breathing again' — from 'spirare' (to breathe). Kin to 'spirit.'
Relating to or affecting respiration or the organs of respiration.
From Latin 'respīrātōrius' (of or pertaining to breathing), from 'respīrāre' (to breathe again, to breathe back, to recover breath), a compound of 're-' (again, back) and 'spīrāre' (to breathe, to blow). Latin 'spīrāre' is of uncertain PIE etymology but is commonly connected to PIE *speys- (to blow), which also produced Old Church Slavonic 'piskati' (to whistle, to pipe) and Old Norse 'físa' (to blow, to break wind). From 'spīrāre' Latin derived 'spīritus' (breath, spirit — the breath being conceived as the animating force),
The stress placement in 'respiratory' differs between British and American English. British English typically stresses the second syllable (reSPIRatory), while American English often stresses the first (RESPiratory). This divergence in stress pattern is relatively recent — eighteenth-century dictionaries consistently stressed the second syllable. The word