'arteriasis' originates from New Latin, formed from Latin 'arteria' (meaning 'artery') combined with the Greek-derived suffix '-iasis' meaning 'disease or pathological condition'.

'arteria' itself comes from classical Latin (from Greek 'ἀρτηρία' artería), and medical formations using '-iasis' were adopted into Neo-Latin and later English medical terminology in the 18th–19th centuries; 'arteriasis' arose as a technical term in modern medical usage.

Initially coined to denote a pathological condition affecting arteries in medical Latin, its meaning has remained essentially the same in modern English as 'disease of the arteries', often overlapping with 'arteriosclerosis'.