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Introduction to Medical Terminology

Medical terminology is linguistic communication used to describe anatomical structures, procedures, conditions, processes, and treatments. At first glance, medical terms may appear intimidating, but one time you sympathize the bones discussion structure and the definitions of some common word elements, the meaning of thousands of medical terms tin can be easily parsed.

Most medical terms adhere to a fixed structure of a prefix, root, and suffix. These give-and-take components are assembled like edifice blocks to create a vast vocabulary.

Greeks are considered the founders of rational medicine and medical terms are primarily derived from Greek and Latin.ⁱ Over centuries, the linguistic communication of medicine has evolved into multiple national medical languages. Today, medical English is the dominant language for international advice. English language is used in nigh influential medical journals and information technology has become the language of choice at international conferences.²

Basic Term Structure

Medical terms are comprised of these standard word parts:

• Prefix: When included, the prefix appears at the beginning of a medical term and usually indicates a location, direction, type, quality, or quantity.
• Root: The root gives a term its essential significant. Virtually all medical terms contain at least 1 root. When a prefix is absent, the term begins with a root.
• Suffix: The suffix appears at the end of a term and may indicate a specialty, exam, procedure, office, disorder, or status. Otherwise, it may but define whether the discussion is a noun, verb, or adjective.
• Combining vowel: A combining vowel (usually the letter "o") may exist added betwixt give-and-take parts to aid in pronunciation.

Breaking a word downward into its component parts should aid readers determine the meaning of an unfamiliar term. For example, hypothermia has the prefix hypo- (meaning below normal), the root therm (heat or warmth), and the suffix -ia (status).

Discussion Roots

A root is the foundational element of whatever medical term. Roots oft point a body office or system.

Common word roots:

Head
brain	enceph
ear	ot, aur
eardrum	tympan, myring
middle	ophthalm, ocul
confront	faci
olfactory organ	rhin
skull	crani
tongue	lingu
molar	odont, paring

Middle and Circulatory
aorta	aort
arteries	arteri
blood	hem, sangu
blood vessels	angi
heart	cardi
veins	ven, phleb

Bones and Muscles
arm	brachi
back	dorsa
bone	oste
foot	pod, ped
muscle	myo
rib	cost
shoulder	scapul
wrist	bother

Digestive System
appendix	append
colon	col
esophagus	esophag
intestine (commonly pocket-sized)	enter
kidney	ren, neph
liver	hepat
stomach	gastr

Other Common Roots
cancer	carci
drug	chem
electric	electr
oestrus	therm
knowledge	gnos
life	bi
pressure	bar
returned sound	echo

Compound Words

A medical give-and-take may include multiple roots. This frequently occurs when referencing more than one body part or arrangement. For example, cardio-pulmo-nary means pertaining to the middle and lungs; gastro-entero-logy ways the study of the breadbasket and intestines.

Combining Forms

A combining vowel is used when a root is followed by some other word part that begins with a consonant. A combining vowel (usually the letter 'o') is added after the root (e.chiliad. neur-o-logy) to aid pronunciation. The root and vowel together (e.g. neur-o) are called the combining course. For simplicity, combining vowel options are omitted from the word function tables.

Prefixes

A prefix modifies the significant of the word root. It may indicate a location, type, quality, body category, or quantity. The prefix is optional and does not appear in all medical terms.

Common prefixes:

Size
big	macro-, mega(lo)-
small-scale	micro-

Number
half	semi-
half (i side)	hemi-
one	mono-, uni-
two | three | four	bi- | tri- | quad(ri)-
equal	equi-
many	poly-

Level
above normal	hyper-
below normal	hypo-
normal/good	eu-

Time or Speed
before	pro-, pre-, dues-
afterwards	post-
back/backward	retro-
once more	re-
fast	tachy-
slow	brady-
new	neo-
time, long time	chron-

Location or Relationship
away from	ab-
above	supra-
effectually	peri-
across	trans-
between	inter-
out of, outside	ex-, ec(t)-
self	auto-
through, completely	dia-
together	con-
toward	ad-
within, within	stop(o)-

Office or Quality
confronting	anti-, contra-
bad	mal-
cause	eti-
self	auto-
without	a-, de-
abnormal, bad	dys-

Suffixes

Medical terms always finish with a suffix.³ The suffix commonly indicates a specialty, test, procedure, function, condition/disorder, or status. For example, "itis" ways inflammation and "ectomy" ways removal.

Alternatively, the suffix may but make the give-and-take a substantive or adjective. For case, the endings -a, -due east, -um, and -us are commonly used to create a atypical substantive (e.g. crani-um).

Though the suffix appears at the terminate of the term, it often comes first in the definition. For example, appendicitis means inflammation (-itis) of the appendix.^four Accordingly, it is sometimes helpful to read unfamiliar medical terms from correct to left.

Occasionally, a medical term may exist comprised of a prefix and suffix. For example, apnea includes the prefix a- (without) and suffix -pnea (breathing).

Common suffixes (letters in parenthesis are not always present):

Bones Substantive and Adjective Suffixes
(noun form)	-a, -e, -um, -is
causing	-genic
status	-ia, -ism, -sis, -y
specialty	-iatry, -iatrics, -ics
specialist	-ian, -ist
structure	-um, -us
study of	-logy
pertaining to	-air-conditioning, -ar(y), -(due east/i)al, -ic(al), -ior, -ory,, -ous, -tic

Tests and Procedures
removal of	-ectomy
paradigm/record	-gram
recording instrument	-graph(y)
cutting in	-otomy
visual exam	-scopy
opening	-stomy

Pathology or Function
claret (status of)	-emia
breathing	-pnea
inflammation	-itis
condition or disease	-osis
deficiency	-penia
disease	-pathy
excessive catamenia	-rrhag(e/ia)
mass, tumor	-oma

Plural Forms

Calculation an "s" or "es" to the end of a word is often the straightforward method to make a word plural in English and many modern Romance languages. In medical terminology, however, things are a piddling more complicated. The plural form of each word is based on the last two letters of the singular suffix.

There are several exceptions. For example, "virus" is a Latin term without a plural form. "Viruses" is the accustomed plural class. Elsewhere, the suffix "s" or "es" has occasionally prevailed in common usage. For example, the plural form of "hematoma" is "hematomas" rather than "hematomata."

Common singular endings and corresponding plural endings:

Plural Forms5
Singular	Plural
a	ae
en	ina
ex, ix, yx	ices
is	es
ma	mata
(a/i/y)nx	nges
um	a
us	i(i)

Additional resource:

• OpenMD Medical Dictionary and give-and-take parts glossary, which provides definitions for 750 medical roots, prefixes, and suffixes.
• The Understanding Medical Words Tutorial by MedlinePlus provides a concise introduction to medical terminology and several quizzes.
• TheFreeDictionary'due south Medical Lexicon by Farlex offers a comprehensive lexicon of medical terms (including word parts) from American Heritage, Collins Encyclopedia, and other major publishers.

References

1. Banay, One thousand L. "An Introduction to Medical Terminology I. Greek and Latin Derivations." Bulletin of the Medical Library Association vol. 36, 1 (1948).
2. Wulff, Henrik R. "The language of medicine." Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine vol. 97,4 (2004): 187-8.
3. Ehrlich, Ann; Schroeder, Carol L. Introduction to Medical Terminology. Centage Learning, 2015.
4. Nath, Judi Lindsley; Lindsley, Kelsey P. A Short Course in Medical Terminology. Wolters Kluwer Health, 2018.
5. Cohen, Barbara J. Medical Terminology: An Illustrated Guide. 6th ed. Baltimore, MD: Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2011. Table 2-4.

Published: January 9, 2020

Last updated: December 24, 2021

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Source: https://openmd.com/guide/medical-terminology

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