This brief essay offers a perspective concerning the etymon of the term "apoptosis," a term that is currently and widely recognized as a synonym for programmed cell death. The origin of the term from the Greek and a historical perspective of how the concept of cell death was viewed in the 1950s to the 1970s are discussed. Studies in such diverse systems as cork oak bark, embryonic neuronal development, hepatology, and insect metamorphosis ultimately described processes similar to what we now call apoptosis.