Is "sectio caesare" an appropriate English alternative to "caesarian section"?

On Parenting.se we recently received this question, which refers to sectio caesare birth.

I was not familiar with the term, but found that wikipedia redirects the term to the caesarian section page.

After some discussion, it was suggested that this might be a common European variant for the procedure. However, it is not clear to me if this is the term from non-English European languages, or if it was used commonly by European English-speakers.

Are both versions valid in English? Is one more common than the other (I don't want to fall into the American bias here)?


A quick search of Google books seems to confirm that sectio caesarea is not a common English phrase at all. Also, using OneLook Dictionary shows no results for this phrase.

So unless someone has other information, I think it is clear that you should use Caesarean section.


While it certainly sounds like Latin, it doesn't appear to be a medical term in "English-speaking" countries. The author of the question is from Malaysia and this term does appear to be in use over there (as well as in neighbouring Indonesia). I suggest that you add the term as a synonym of the caesarean-section tag (if one exists) and replace everything else for consistency.