Medical Etymology Wiki



Welcome!
Examining the origins of medical terminology can help us better understand and remember a wide variety of words that are relevant to our field. If you find out the etymology of a word which hasn't been included, please add it to this wiki to make it a more comprehensive resource.

What information can I find? What can I add?
Ideally, we're looking to find out about the greek, latin, etc, roots of different medical terms, and an explanation of how the etymology of the word connects with its current usage.

e.g. linea alba: "white line" (latin), referring to the line of white connective tissue which runs down the midline of the abdomen.

For acronyms or abbreviations, elaborating what words make up the acronym, and why, is important.

e.g. PTPN22: "protein tyrosine phosphatase non-receptor type 22 (lymphoid)", an intracellular enzyme (and thus not a membrane-bound receptor, so a non-receptor) which removes (-ase) phosphate groups from the amino acid tyrosine on various proteins, present in lymphoid organs.

Sometimes it's a lot harder to figure out why a certain word is used to describe a certain concept or object, or it bears nearly no relevance to its modern day usage, so feel free to add mnemonics, or memory techniques, to help aid in recall and understanding.

e.g. IL-6: "interleukin-6", where inter: "between" (latin) and leukin is from leukos: "white" (greek), so interleukins signal between white blood cells. IL-"six" is the key mediator of fevers, so it makes you "sick" (six ~ sick).

Don't judge, even if a mnemonic seems silly. If it helps you remember, then it's worth including.

Where can I find information?
The Online Etymology Dictionary can be quite helpful, it's easy to access but is pretty limited in scope.

The Oxford English Dictionary has more information on word origins, however you may require institutional access.

If you can break down the word into different stems, it might be helpful to look them up in latin/greek/etc dictionaries, and there are a variety online. It might also be helpful to go through the list of Etymologia articles from the journal of Emerging Infectious Diseases.

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