Etymology Flashcards

Question

poli- Etymology?

Answer 1

Greek, literally means "grey" \*Note grey or gray is acceptable (From Mod. 5)

Answer 2

Greek, "thalamos" meaning "inner room" In ancient Greece, houses had rooms where one would have to navigate corridors to access it. In other words, these doors were not easily accessible when coming in from outside. These "inner rooms" were called "thalamos" in Greek. The idea is that the thalamos is the "inner room" of the brain because it is hard to get to. (From Mod. 5)

Answer 3

Greek, literally "under the thalamus" See thalam- (From Mod. 5)

Answer 4

Latin (From Mod. 2)

Answer 5

Greek Story is basically, in the Greek world, Delphi was thought to be the centre of the Greek universe. It is at that location where Apollo's temple is located. Thus, the greats called it the "omphalos at delphi"; basicaly, the navel of the world (or middle of the world). The middle of our belly button is thus also the "omphalos"

Answer 6

Latin; from "coelicacus" meaning "hollow" This is because the anatomist saw the abdomen as a hollow area where stuff was stored, hence the name.

Answer 7

Greek, from "Thorax". This was a type of Greek chest armor. The idea is that the chest/ribs acted as "armour" for the body, thus "Thorax" was appropriate.

Answer 8

Greek, means hand Fun aside; chiropractor and surgeon both mean someone who works with their hand. The that happened is that chir- + urg- = workng, so one who works with their hands in French was chirurgien. The chir turned into a s, and the ie replaced by an eo, making surgeon.

Answer 9

ped- is Latin pod- is Greek

Answer 10

Greek; all 3 are derived from "Pathos", meaning "suffering".

Answer 11

Latin, "mater" means "mother" the meninges (dura/pia/arachnoid mater) are all protective layers of the brain. They protect the brain like a mother protects her child, hence the name.

Answer 12

Dura means "tough" Comes from a translation of an Arabic phrase into Latin

Answer 13

Latin, "Arachn-" means "spider web" This is because the arachnoid mater is light and tough, like a spider web.

Answer 14

Latin, "pia-" means "tender" I assume because the bottom most layer is "tender" and soft because it is right above the gray matter

Answer 15

Latin derivative, "cancer", as in the crab in astrology Greek derviative, "karkinos", which is also the crab in astrology (I.e. both refer to the constellation of cancer) This is because Galen said that cancerous tumours "spread out" in the body like how the legs of the crab spread out from its body.

Answer 16

Greek, "Phren" which is "an organ of cognition located in the chest" This arose because early anatomists belived that there was an organ in the chest that was used for cognition. We know today (and they found out too) that there was no such organ. However, they did find the muscle of the diaphragm. Thus, that muscle began being associated with *phren*.

Answer 17

Greek, "amyl" is greek for "a cake" It supposedly looks like a cake. I don't know how but apparently that's the reason, so just accept it.

Answer 18

Latin, for "wine sediment" Back then, they drank weak wine since the ethanol would usually kill the germs and what not. However there is always some sediment at the bottom of the bottle. Somehow, it went from that to meaning feces/poop.

Answer 19

"Lact-" is Latin "Galact-" is Greek Can think "L for Latin, G for Greek"

Answer 20

Greek for "stone"

Answer 21

Latin for stone

Answer 22

"didymos", Greek Meaning "twin"

Answer 23

"orchis", Greek, meaning "testicle" Orchids are called as such because the roots of a orchid look like testicles. Really.

Answer 24

From "balanos", meaning "Acorn" - don't worry about the language of origin

Answer 25

From Hymenaios, the Greeko-Roman goddess of marriage Always assosiated with a torch in hand

Answer 26

"kolpos" - Greek, meaning "pocket or fold" kolpos refers to how Greeks carried things around; since they wore robe-like garments, they only could carry things in the folds of that garment. Those were the "pockets" of their clothing. This can refer to any pocket, ex. pocket in a coastline So when refering the the hymen, we refer to the pocket like folds outside the vagina

Answer 27

Literally "vagina" in Latin Means "sword sheath", if you know what i mean \*WINK WINK\*

Answer 28

Hyster- is Greek uter- is Latin Both mean "uterus"

Answer 29

Greek, meaning "mother" Organ that makes a woman a mother

Answer 30

literally, it's a "condition of the womb". The current definition of "an exaggerated/uncontrollable emotion" comes from the Greeks' theory of the "Wandering Womb" Hippocrates' is kind of responsible (because he is the first one who wrote it down). The idea was that the organs of the body like moving around. When the uterus wasn't "anchored", it would flaot around, pressing on other organs. This would (at least the believed) cause difficulties w/ breathing, blood flow, proper organ function, etc over a long period of time. Hippocrates believed that the solution was sex; the womb is "dry" and needed to be lubricated Other theory was to put perfumes near the mouth of the vagina (to make womb want to "come down") or to do the opposite, put foul smelling things near the nose so that the womb would want to go down to avoid the stench

Answer 31

"naked" Greek Called "gymnasium" as greeks would exercise naked

Answer 32

"atrium", Latin for "room" (leading to another room, like an atrium in a room today) Atrium in the heart is a cavity leading to another "room" (cavity) in the heart

Answer 33

"bright white", Latin In rome, most people didn't wear a toga; usually just cloth + belt. However, if you were a politician running for office, you would wear a very bright white toga. Since getting togas very white is very difficult and require lots of labour, wearing a bright white toga signifies that you have the wealth to afford the slaves to make the toga clean and white candid- is the origin of the word candidate (in terms of politics) for this reason

Answer 34

"one that eats"

Answer 35

"eso-" = carrying "phag-" = eating Therefore "esophag-" = carrying what has been eaten"

Answer 36

"pylorus", Greek, means "gatekeeper" That is because the phloric sphincter is the "gatekeeper" for the intestines

Answer 37

Latin, literall means 12, as in 12 fingers in length Named by Herophilus of Alexandria

Answer 38

"blind (pouch)", because they hade no idea what the cecum did. So the anatomists called it a "blind pocket" because it didn't seem to go anywhere.

Answer 39

"Sphincter", Greek See Mod. 1 and the myth of the Sphinx. Named after the way the Sphinx killed herself, by SQUEEZING her neck (and choking herself), just like how a sphnicter squeezes the orfice shut.

Answer 40

Greek, means "mouse" Because when ppl flex their muscles, it kinda looks like a mouse in the muscle. I don't know it just is so go with it.

Answer 41

radius; because the bone looks like the spoke of a wagon wheel Latin

Answer 42

coccynx, Greek. "the bill of a cuckoo bird"

Answer 43

"flute" Taken from tibia from animal, and made a flute Don't know if the flute came first or the bone came first Likely that the name had a connection to sacrifices in the Roman world.

Answer 44

From Patella = small, flat plate used in roman sacrifice Thus, the kneecap looks like a patella, hence the name Assuming Latin

Answer 45

Latin, sacrum meaning "sacred bone" Compare with sacrifice, which literally means "making things sacred (in Latin)

Answer 46

1. Possibly because it is the last bone to decay, hence it being "special" 2. it protects the "sacred" organs of reproduction 3. Potentially a "sacred" animal bone used in early sacrifices? We don't know for sure

Answer 47

Comes from the Macedonian phalanx, which is a bunch of spears that are really long in formation (army formation). The finger bone kind of looks like the spears of the phalanx

Answer 48

Greek, from "phylax", which is a Greek _guard_

Answer 49

Splen- (Grk), lien- (Lat) Both mean spleen; spleen was theorized as force of black bile (which again, doesn't exist)

Answer 50

From ikteros (Grk), which also means jaundice. Comes from a name of a bird, which was a Greeco-Roman cure for jaundice.

Answer 51

Greek, meaning "sharp"

Answer 52

en- tom- (Greek) in-sect- (Ltn) Both mean "cut into segments"

Answer 53

Plumbum (Ltn), also mean lead. Source of the word "plumb line", and "plumbing"

Answer 54

nos- (Grk) morb- (Ltn)

Answer 55

From Gaia, Greek goddess of the earth

Etymology Flashcards

Etymology of selected words from each module. (84 cards)