etymology · nuki-simkin-2006-history-of-gout

The first person to use the word 'gout' to describe podagra ... was the Dominican monk Randolphus of Bocking, domestic chaplain to the Bishop of Chichester (1197–1258). The term is derived from the Latin word gutta (or 'drop'), and referred to the prevailing medieval belief that an excess of one of the four 'humors' ... would, under certain circumstances, 'drop' or flow into a joint, causing pain and inflammation.