Mid 16th century; earliest use found in Nicholas Udall (1504–1556), schoolmaster and playwright. From classical Latin phalangium a kind of venomous spider, a plant reputed to cure the bites of poisonous spiders from ancient Greek ϕαλάγγιον a kind of venomous spider, in Hellenistic Greek also a plant reputed to cure the bites of poisonous spiders from ϕαλαγγ-, ϕάλανξ + -ιον, suffix forming nouns.