Last week, Webb’s Weird Words missed an opportunity.

We were looking at leptorrhine, one of several oddball terms from cult-fave novelist Charles Portis. Pronounced “LEP-tuh-ryne,” this uncommon adjective means “having a long, narrow nose.”

But I forgot to note that this word uses the Greek base rhin(o), meaning “nose”; it’s found in words like rhinovirus (nasal illness); rhinoplasty (“nose job”); and yes, rhinoceros (from that animal’s impressive snout).

And suddenly, it occurred to me that a column on medical terms might be just what the doctor ordered.

Let’s say your physician diagnoses phlebitis. It would help if you knew that PHLEB means “vein,” while ITIS means “inflammation” (even if my spell-checker keeps changing that to “it is,” grrr); so you’ve got an inflamed vein! But of course, you still need to know where it is—and how to treat it.

Keeping in mind that I’m no doctor (though I am married to one!), here’s some aid in decoding those multisyllabic medical verbosities:

Whereas ITIS means “inflammation,” OSIS means “a condition or process”—usually one that’s diseased or abnormal. So for example: NECRO means “dead” (as in necromancer and necrophilia); and thus necrosis indicates cells or tissue dying in a diseased or abnormal fashion. ITIC and OTIC are, incidentally, the adjective forms of these endings.

HYPER means “over, excessive” (as in “hyperactive”), while HYPO means “below, less than normal”; thus a hypodermic needle goes below the skin—because DERM means “skin” (as in dermatologist, epidermis and even pachyderm [“thick-skinned”]). And now you can figure out what dermatitis means—right?

TOM(Y) is a common Greek base meaning “to cut.” It is found in the medical suffixes O(S)TOMY and ECTOMY, both of which require incision.

The former—as in tracheotomy and the dreaded colostomy—means putting in a surgical opening to drain or empty an area. ECTOMY, on the other hand—found in such well-known procedures as mastectomy and tonsillectomy—means surgical removal; and, since mast means “breast,” mastectomy involves removing some or all of that body part.

(On a side-note, the word atom, with the negative prefix a- [asexual, atheist, etc.], originally indicated something that “could not be cut”—since at the time, we thought there was nothing smaller!)

So with those prefixes & suffixes settled, here are some common Greek and Latin medical bases—together with the body part indicated. I will also provide, in parentheses, at least one sample word from that root—and related notes of interest.

ALG: pain (as in, neuralgia; sorry, math-haters: algebra does NOT comes from this root!). ARTHR: joint (arthritis). CARD: heart (cardiac). CEPH(AL): head (cephalopod; since POD means “foot”—as in podiatrist—that class of sea animals is so named because its tentacles are attached to the head!).

DERM: skin (taxidermy—literally “arranging the skin.”). GASTR: stomach (gastric). GER(ONT): old (geriatric). GYN(EC): woman (gynecologist).

HEM(AT): blood (hematology). HEPAT: liver (hepatitis). HYSTER: uterus (hysterectomy; and yes, hysteria is also, sadly, derived from this: according to the excellent Online Etymology Dictionary, it was “originally defined as a neurotic condition peculiar to women and thought to be caused by a dysfunction of the uterus”).

IATR: doctor, medicine (psychiatrist). LEUC/LEUK: white (leukemia). MAST: breast (it’s vaguely possible that Amazon derives from this—again using the negative prefix a- to mean “without a breast,” since those formidable maidens of myth supposedly removed one to aid in archery; so … what’s in your shopping cart?).

MELAN: black (melanoma). MENING: membrane (meningitis). NECR: dead (necrotic). NEPTH & REN: kidney (nephrology, renal). NEURO: nerve, nervous system (neurosis).

OLOGY, OLOGIST: study of, one who studies (psychology, cardiologist). OMA: tumor (hematoma). ONCOL: mass, tumor, cancer (oncologist). OPSY: examination (biopsy); this little unit comes from our next base here:

OPT/OPHTHAL: eye (optical, ophthalmologist). ORTH(O): straight (since ODONT means “teeth,” an orthodontist is, quite simply, one who straightens teeth!). OST: bone (osteoporosis).

PATH: pain, suffering (pathology, sympathetic). PED: child (pediatrician). PEP(T): digest, stomach (peptic—and yes, Pepto-Bismol). PHLEB: vein (phlebotomist). PLEG: paralysis (paraplegic). PSYCH(O): mind, mental (psychosis). PULM: lung (pulmonary).

SCLER(O): hard (multiple sclerosis). SOMA(T): body (psychosomatic). STEN: narrow, small (stenosis—and stenographer!). THROMB: clot (thrombosis). TROPH(Y): to grow (atrophy = “not growing”).

For further study, there’s a full and rather massive set of these building-blocks at Wikipedia (search “List of medical roots”).

In the meantime, learn two of these and call me in the morning.