lymph gland
Meaning of lymph gland: An everyday name that survives despite being anatomically wrong, since the structure it describes filters rather than secretes.
Definition of lymph gland
Lymph gland is an older, everyday name for a lymph node, a small bean-shaped mass of immune tissue enclosed in a fibrous capsule and set along the lymphatic vessels. It filters lymph, the fluid draining out of tissues, and houses the white cells that inspect whatever that fluid carries. Hundreds are distributed through the body, clustered in the neck, armpit, groin, chest and abdomen.
Why is gland the wrong word?
A gland makes and releases a substance, as the thyroid releases hormone and a salivary gland releases saliva. A node makes nothing of the kind. It is a filter with an immune workforce living inside it, and the name gland persists only because it predates any understanding of what the structure does. Both names appear in ordinary speech and older records, and the swelling people describe as swollen glands in the neck is almost always enlarged nodes.
What happens inside one?
Fluid enters through several vessels at the curved outer surface and leaves through one vessel at the notch, seeping through channels lined with cells that trap debris, bacteria and stray tumor cells on the way. Packed around those channels are lymphocytes waiting for something to react to. When a fragment of a microbe is presented to a cell that recognizes it, that cell multiplies, and the resulting activity is what makes the node enlarge and become tender. The lymph that leaves has been filtered and enriched with newly made antibody.
Why do they swell?
| Cause | Typical pattern |
|---|---|
| Local infection | Tender, mobile, near the infected site, settles as it clears |
| Widespread viral illness | Several groups at once, mildly tender |
| Lymphoma | Painless, rubbery, persistent, often enlarging |
| Cancer spread | Hard, fixed, in the drainage path of a known tumor |
| Immune conditions and drug reactions | Generalized, often with rash or joint symptoms |
Why does their position matter in cancer?
Each region of the body drains to a predictable group, so the nodes reached first reveal where a tumor is likely to have travelled. Breast tumors drain mainly to the axillary lymph node group under the arm. That predictability is what makes it possible to trace and sample the sentinel lymph node, the first node on the path, instead of clearing an entire region.
Also known as
Used in a sentence
A single enlarged lymph gland was palpable in the left side of the neck.
Good to know
The structure is a filter rather than a secreting organ, so lymph node is the accurate term; the older name survives in speech and in phrases such as swollen glands.
Word origin
Where “lymph gland” comes from
Lymph comes from the Latin lympha, meaning clear water; gland from glandula, a little acorn, describing the shape.