60 Fun Facts About Medical Terminology

The suffix -itis, as in tonsillitis and appendicitis, means what?

Inflammation and infection are not the same thing: an inflamed joint in arthritis usually has no germ in it at all.

A mastectomy, appendectomy or tonsillectomy all involve what?

The suffix -ectomy comes from the Greek for cutting out; the -tomy family (mastoidotomy, laparotomy) means cutting into without removing.

A colostomy or tracheostomy involves surgically creating what?

The word is built from the Greek stoma, mouth, and the ostomy is the artificial mouth the surgeon makes; the -otomy in tracheotomy is just the cut.

Rhinoplasty and arthroplasty share the suffix -plasty, meaning what?

The Greek plassein means to mould, the same root as plastic and plaster.

Myalgia is pain in which tissue?

The my(o)- root gives us myocardium and myoblast; -algia is pain, and its cousin -dynia (as in vulvodynia) means the same.

Anemia, septicemia and leukemia all end in -emia. What does that suffix refer to?

The a- at the start of anemia is the negative prefix, so the word literally means 'no blood'.

Sarcoma, lipoma and teratoma share the suffix -oma, meaning what?

By convention benign lumps take -oma alone (a lipoma is fat) while malignant ones add carcin- or sarc-; melanoma, a serious skin cancer, is the famous exception.

Splenomegaly and cardiomegaly describe an organ that is what?

The same mega- root does double duty in the metric system, where it means a million.

A colonoscopy, endoscopy or arthroscopy is an examination performed how?

The -scopy family comes from skopein, to look; the picture or trace produced by an examination gets -gram, and the process of making it -graphy.

Diarrhea and rhinorrhea share a suffix meaning what?

The related -rrhagia (as in menorrhagia and hemorrhage) means the flow has become an excessive bleed.

Dyspnea, apnea and tachypnea all describe some aspect of what?

The Greek pnoia is breath; sleep apnea literally means 'no breath', which is exactly what happens for seconds at a time.

Leukopenia and thrombocytopenia end in -penia. What does that suffix indicate?

The Greek penia is poverty; the opposite, an excess of cells, takes -cytosis, as in leukocytosis.

Amniocentesis and thoracentesis share the suffix -centesis, which describes what procedure?

The Greek kentesis is a pricking; a spinal tap is a lumbar puncture rather than a lumbar centesis only because English got there first.

What does the surgical suffix -rrhaphy, as in herniorrhaphy, mean?

The Greek rhaphe is a seam; the surgical suffix for fixing an organ in position is -pexy, and for crushing a stone it is -tripsy.

Lithotripsy, a treatment for kidney stones, literally means what?

The lith- root is Greek for stone (as in monolith), and modern lithotripsy does the crushing with focused shock waves from outside the body.

Arthrodesis is a procedure that does what to a joint?

The suffix -desis means binding; it is the opposite philosophy to arthroplasty, which rebuilds the joint to keep it moving.

Osteomalacia is a condition in which bone becomes what?

In children the same vitamin D shortage is called rickets; osteoporosis, by contrast, is bone that has become porous rather than soft.

Hemiplegia is paralysis affecting how much of the body?

Hemi- is one half; para- gives paraplegia for the legs and quadri- or tetra- gives quadriplegia for all four limbs. Weakness short of paralysis is -paresis.

Dysphagia and dysphasia sound alike but mean different things. Dysphagia is difficulty with what?

The -phagia root is eating (as in the sarcophagus, the flesh-eating stone coffin); -phasia is speech, and hospital staff often say the two words very carefully.

Bradycardia and tachycardia describe a heart that is beating how?

Brady- is slow and tachy- is fast, which is why a tachometer measures how fast an engine is turning.

Which prefix means 'below normal', as in hypotension and hypothermia?

Its opposite hyper- means extreme or beyond normal, and mixing the two up on a chart is a classic error, which is why some hospitals write them out in full.

The prefix dys-, as in dysentery and dyslexia, means what?

The prefix for 'without' is a- or an-, as in analgesic, literally 'without pain'.

The pericardium surrounds the heart. What does the prefix peri- mean?

Endo- is inside (endocrinology), epi- is on or upon (epicardium), and per- is through, so peroxide is oxygen pushed through.

Oliguria and polyuria are opposites describing urine output. What does oligo- mean?

Poly- is many, so polyuria is passing a lot of urine, a classic early sign of diabetes.

Hepatology, hepatitis and hepatocyte all concern which organ?

The kidney has two roots: Greek nephr- (nephrology) and Latin ren- (renal), and medicine uses both freely.

A cholecystectomy removes which organ?

Chol(e)- is bile and cyst- is a bladder or sac, so the gallbladder is literally the bile-bladder; cyst- on its own usually means the urinary bladder, as in cystitis.

The root myel(o)-, as in myeloma and myelin, refers to which two structures?

It is easily confused with my(o)-, muscle: a myeloma is a marrow cancer, a myoma is a muscle tumour.

Blepharoplasty is cosmetic surgery on which part of the body?

The eye itself gets ophthalm- (Greek) or ocul- (Latin), tears get dacry- or lacrim-, and the cornea gets kerat-.

Onychophagy is the medical name for what habit?

Onych- is nail and -phagy is eating; the hair-pulling disorder is trichotillomania, from trich-, hair.

Which colour does the root cyan(o)- denote, as in cyanosis, the tinge of oxygen-starved lips?

Erythr- is red (erythrocyte, a red blood cell), leuk- is white (leukocyte), melan- is black (melanin) and chlor- is green (chlorophyll).

Polydactyly is being born with what?

Dactyl- is Greek for finger or toe, which is also why a dactyl in poetry is a long syllable followed by two short ones, like the joints of a finger.

A chiropractor's name comes from the Greek root chir-, meaning what?

The same root gives surgery its old name, chirurgery, 'hand-work'; the foot is pod- (podiatry), the arm brachi- and the wrist carp-.

A laparotomy is an incision into what?

The chest is thorac-, so a thoracotomy opens the chest, and a laparoscopy is keyhole inspection of the belly through the same wall.

Hyperhidrosis is an excess of what?

Hidr- (sweat) is a different root from hydr- (water), so hydrocephalus is water on the brain and hyperhidrosis is soaked shirts.

Which is the usual combining vowel used to join medical word parts, as in gastr-o-enteritis?

The rule of thumb is that Greek parts go with Greek parts and Latin with Latin, though hybrids such as 'television' style mixes creep in.

In anatomy, 'proximal' and 'distal' describe how close a structure is to what?

So the elbow is proximal to the wrist but distal to the shoulder; near the midline is medial and towards the side is lateral.

Which anatomical division splits the body into left and right portions?

The coronal plane splits front from back and the transverse plane top from bottom; the sagittal takes its name from the arrow-like suture on top of the skull.

If a symptom is 'contralateral' to a brain injury, where is it?

Same side is ipsilateral. Because the motor pathways cross over, a stroke in the left brain typically weakens the right arm and leg.

A patient lying face-up on their back is in which position?

Face-down is prone. Anterior and posterior come from the Latin for before and after, and dorsal and ventral from the Latin for back and belly.

On a prescription, what does 'stat' mean?

It is short for the Latin statim; the abbreviation for 'as needed' is PRN, from pro re nata, 'for the thing that has arisen'.

A patient marked NPO before surgery must do what?

It stands for nil (or nihil) per os; the related PO on a drug chart means the medicine is to be swallowed.

A drug prescribed 'b.i.d.' or BID is taken how often?

Bis in die; three times is TID (ter in die) and four times QID (quater in die). Because these are so easily misread, many hospitals now insist on plain English.

On a prescription for eye medication, 'gtt' is an instruction to give what?

It is Latin gutta(e), drop(s); the eyes themselves are OD, OS and OU, for the right, the left and both.

The Rx symbol at the top of a prescription is an abbreviation of which Latin word?

It is the imperative 'take', addressed to the pharmacist; the 'Sig' that follows is signa, 'write', introducing the directions for the patient.

An 'idiopathic' disease is one that is what?

The Greek roots idios and pathos give roughly 'a disease of its own kind', which is a polite way of saying nobody knows why.

An 'iatrogenic' condition has been caused by what?

Iatros is Greek for healer, so the word literally means 'brought forth by the doctor'; a nosocomial infection is the narrower case of one picked up in hospital.

When a doctor calls an illness 'acute', what are they saying about it?

Acute contrasts with chronic; the term describes timing rather than severity, though it sometimes also implies a short duration.

A prognosis differs from a diagnosis in that it does what?

The Greek pro-gnosis is 'fore-knowing'; -gnosis is knowledge and dia- is through, so a diagnosis is knowing something through and through.

'Palliative' care takes its name from the Latin palliare, meaning what?

The idea is to cover the symptoms and suffering of a serious illness rather than to cure it, and a pallium was a Roman cloak.

Who coined the 45-letter word pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis in 1935?

Everett M. Smith of the National Puzzlers' League invented it as a stunt; it slipped into a Merriam-Webster supplement in 1939 and there is no evidence the disease it names actually exists.

A tumour described as 'benign' is one with what property?

Benign is not the same as harmless: a benign growth inside the skull can still press on the brain, which is why some are removed anyway.

The Latin word musculus, root of 'muscle', literally means what?

Descriptive anatomy is often plain Latin: musculus gluteus maximus is simply the 'largest rump muscle'.

The coronal plane, dividing the body into front and back, is named from the Latin for what?

The sagittal plane, by contrast, is named for the Latin sagitta, an arrow.

What is the membrane surrounding a bone, named from the Greek for 'around' and 'bone', called?

Tendons anchor to it at a muscle's origin and insertion, and beneath it lie compact bone, spongy bone and marrow.

What is the shaft of a long bone called?

The rounded heads at each end are the epiphyses, joined to the shaft by the epiphyseal plate.

The term 'visceral' is contrasted with which word meaning 'of the wall' of a body cavity or organ?

The pair is used to name the opposing sides of membranes such as the pleura and pericardium.

The anatomical term fascia, for membranous sheets of tissue, comes from the Latin for what?

It is a generic label for macroscopic membranous structures, distinct from tendons and ligaments.

In radiology, what is an X-ray view called when the beam enters the back and exits the front?

Views are named for where the beam enters and leaves the body, so front-to-back is anteroposterior.

The suffix -cyte, as in astrocyte and erythrocyte, comes from a Greek word meaning what?

Astrocytes are star-shaped glial cells of the central nervous system, alongside oligodendrocytes and radial glia.

A frenum, an anatomical structure that keeps something in place, is Latin for what?

Similarly, a foramen is simply Latin for a hole, as in the foramen magnum at the base of the skull.