Sherrington struggled to find a good term that emphasized a union between two separate elements, and the actual term "synapse" was suggested by the English classical scholar Arthur Woollgar Verrall, a friend of Foster. The word was derived from the Greek synapsis (), meaning "conjunction", which in turn derives from synaptein (), from syn () "together" and haptein () "to fasten".
The search for an apt term to describe the connection between two distinct parts was a challenge faced by Sherrington, but it was ultimately resolved through the suggestion of "synapse" by his friend and classical scholar Arthur Woollgar Verrall, who drew on Greek words to create the term.