Medical Jargon Guide
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
If doctors do not want to be understood, they use latin jargon. Right ?
Wrong. Most of the medical jargon is of greek origin. There are latin words, of course, like appendix, or arteria femuralis, but other phrases, like for example diaphragma, haemophilia, hydrocephalos, physiognomia, ... , are greek.
Even if you have not learned greek or studied medicine, you can try to understand a decent amount of these phrases, you can even invent new ones. I will try to give a quick guide to medical jargon:
Step one: Try to find pairs of words, prefixes, suffixes which seem to have opposite meanings.
| Meaning | Example | |
|---|---|---|
| hyper- | high | hypertonia (high pressure/tension) |
| hypo- | low | hypotonia (high pressure/tension) |
| endo- | inside | endogenous (of inside origin) |
| exo- | outside | exogenous (of outside origin) |
| eu- | good/well | eutrophy (state of being well nourished) |
| dys- | bad/faulty | dystrophy (state of being bad nourished) |
| -philic/-philia | (having) strong affinity to so/sth | nekrophilia (affinity to dead bodies) |
| -phobic/-phobia | (having) lack of affinity, dread of so/sth | akrophobia: fear of heights 1 |
| tachy- | quick/fast | tachykardia (fast heartbeat) |
| brady- | slow | bradykardia (slow heartbeat) |
| -megalo2- | large | acromegaly A disease characterised by excessive growth and enlargement of various bits of the body |
| -mikro- | small | microphtalmia A disease characterised by extremely small eyes |
Step two: Try to find word parts which seem to indicate an effect.
| Meaning | Example | |
|---|---|---|
| -gen- | creating3, producing or inciting something | carcinogenous (producing cancer) |
Step three: Try to find words for things and bodyparts.
| Meaning | Example | |
|---|---|---|
| -cephal- | head | |
| -encephal- | brain (in the head) | EEG (Electroencephalogramm = measuring of the brain electricity) |
| -ergo- | work | ergometer (device to measure work) |
| -kardia- | heart | see above: tachy-/bradykardia |
| -ophtalmo- | eye | see above: microphtalmia |
Step four: Use your newly adopted knowledge to find excellent excuses for not having to go to work.
"I can't come to the office today because work makes my thinking far to slow" is far less impressive than ".. because i have an acute ergogenous brachyencephalia."
As you see, (ancient) greek is a very logical language with a dramatically underestimated impact on today's life. Keep on searching useful words at the (Ancient) Greek - English Dictionary.
You'll be surprised how many greek words sound familiar to you!
