drill down to semantics”? What she probably meant was that she wanted to discuss the actual meaning of whatever it was you were discussing. So, remember that when you are trying to decipher the meaning of a medical term, you do, in fact, want to talk semantics.
The word semantics is derived from the Greek semantikos, meaning “significant.”
This may be a book about medical terms, but we’re talking morphemes here, not morphine. A morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantic meaning. For example, un means not, or opposite. So the next time you look at a two-letter prefix and think it’s just window dressing, think again. Chances are it has plenty of important meaning.
Prefix as Precursor
Think of the prefix as the welcome wagon for a term. It invites you into a whole new world. It tells you something about what you are going to find inside. Prefixes and suffixes are modifiers or adjectives that alter the meaning of the root word, in the same ways as regular English terms. A prefix appears at the beginning of a word and tells the how, why, where, when, how much, how many, position, direction, time, or status.
You might recognize many of the prefixes associated with medical terminology, because they have similar meanings in regular, everyday vernacular. For example, the most basic prefix of a- means without, or not, in medical terminology, just as it does in any other word. If something is atypical, it is not typical. Hemi- means half, as in hemisphere. The moral of this story is that prefixes aren’t just window dressing. They have a unique and specific goal, which is to tell the reader more about the circumstances surrounding the word’s meaning.
Common Prefixes
You can read a lot more about prefixes in Chapter 6, but to whet your appetite Table 3-3 gives you a quick look at some of the most common prefixes that play a huge role in both common, everyday English and medical terminology.
Table 3-3 Preview of Important Prefixes
Suffixes: Final Thoughts
The suffix, always at the end of a word, usually indicates a procedure, a condition, or a disease. Whereas the prefix gives you a clue into what to expect in a word’s meaning, the suffix pulls no punches and tells you what is happening with a specific body part or system. And, usually, it either entails what is wrong medically or indicates the procedure used to diagnose or fix it.
The scope of suffix meanings is extremely wide. Like prefixes, many of these have similar meanings in plain old, everyday English that you hear on the street. For example, the suffix -meter simply indicates an instrument used to measure something, just as it does in other fields of study. Geography, a term feared by many fifth graders the world over, ends with -graphy and means the process of recording. You’ll meet several other forms of -graphy in our medical term discussions.
Table 3-4 gives you a preview of the delights that await you in Chapter 7.
Table 3-4 Summarizing Important Suffixes
Chapter 4
Acronyms, Eponyms, Homonyms, Multiples, and Plurals – Oh My!
In This Chapter
▶ Checking out acronyms, eponyms, and homonyms
▶ Discovering the common plural forms
▶ Applying different rules of pluralization to medical terms
After you’ve got the basics under your belt, it’s time to branch out. Really branch out – in multiple directions. You might think that in medical terminology, multiples and plurals work just like they do for regular words in the English language. Psych! Read on to find out about the wily world of medical multiples.
Pluralized medical terms would be pretty easy to comprehend and remember if all examples followed the same rules. The fun (fun?) of the English language is that there are several words that do not follow the rules. To see this, all you have to do is look to some basic examples from everyday conversation.
The standard rule is to add an s to make a noun plural, so one cat and one dog become two or more cats and dogs. Simple. But how about one woman, one man, and one child? This pluralization becomes two or more women, men, and children. So much for simply adding the s. Women, men, and children are irregular plurals.
For the most part, terms of Latin or Greek origin do not follow English rules when it comes to pluralizing. However, luckily for you, it is becoming more and more acceptable for medical terms to be pluralized by the English method. But first, take a quick look at three common kinds of common medical terminology: acronyms, eponyms, and homonyms.
Acronyms
An acronym is a word (or abbreviation) formed by the first letters or syllables of other words. Most acronyms are expressed in uppercase letters, but not always. For example, you might be familiar with the words scuba and laser. These terms are so well known that they have become acceptable as words in their own right. Scuba began life as an acronym for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. Laser was an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. These two humble acronyms went on to greater glory as bona fide words.
There are, to put it mildly, many acronyms in medical terminology, some of which are common, some not so common. It is important to know the context in which they are used, because many are identical or sound similar, but have quite different meanings. Here are some common medical acronyms.
✔ AMA: American Medical Association
✔ AMA: Against medical advice
✔ CAT: Computerized axial tomography (scan)
✔ CAT: Children’s apperception test
✔ COPD: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
✔ COPE: Chronic obstructive pulmonary emphysema
✔ ECT: Electroconvulsive therapy (shock therapy)
✔ ECT: Enteric-coated tablet
✔ ECT: Euglobulin clot test
✔ MRI: Magnetic resonance imaging
✔ MRI: Medical Research Institute
✔ MRI:
