OFFC 1001 - Chapter 1 Basic Word Structure

OFFC 1001 Anatomy and Terminology

Root

It forms the foundation of a medical term to which prefixes and suffixes can be added.

eg: cardi = the root for heart-related terms

Prefix

A word element placed at the beginning of a medical term that modifies its meaning. (Location, time, number, status)

eg. brady = slow in terms of heart rate.

Suffix

Describes the condition, disease or procedure

eg. -itis = inflammation

Combining Forms

Helps connect word parts and makes medical terms easier to pronounce. The combining vowel is usually the letter “o”.

eg. cardi/o = heart

If there are 2 roots the combining vowel stays even if the second root begins with a vowel

eg. gastr/o/enter/o/logy

When a term contains 2 or more roots, which root goes first?

Anatomic position of the body part determines which root goes first before the other.

eg. The process of study of the stomach and intestines. The stomach receives foo first, before the small intestines. So the word would be gastroenterology and not enterogastrology

Order of Analysis

1 Suffix

2 Root/Combining Form

3 Prefix

aden/o

gland

arthr/o

joint

bi/o

life

carcin/o

cancerous/cancer

cardi/o

heart

cephal/o

head

cerebr/o

cerebrum

cis/o

to cut

crin/o

to secrete

cyst/o

urinary bladder

cyt/o

cell

derm/o or dermat/o

skin

electr/o

electricity

enter/o

intestines

erthr/o

red

gastr/o

stomach

glyc/o

sugar

gnos/o

knowledge

gynec/o

woman/ female

hemat/o or hem/o

blood

hepat/o

liver

iatr/o

treatment, physician

leuk/o

white

log/o

study of

nephr/o

kidney

neur/o

nerve

onc/o

tumour

ophthalm/o

eye

oste/o

bone

path/o

disease

ped/o

child

pysch/o

mind

radi/o

xrays

ren/o

kidney

rhin/o

nose

sarc/o

flesh

sect/o

to cut

thromb/o

clot/clotting

ur/o

urinary tract, urine

-ac

pertaining to

-al

pertaining to

-algia

pain

-cyte

cell

-ectomy

excision, removal

-emia

blood condition

-genic

produced by/in

-globin

protein

-gram

record

-ic, -ical

pertaining to

-ion

process

-ist

specialist

-itis

inflammation

-logy

process of study

-oma

tumour, mass, swelling

-opsy

process of viewing

-osis

condition, usually abnormal

-pathy

disease condition

-scope

instrument to visually examine

-scopy

process of visually examining

-sis

state of; condition

-tomy

process of cutting, incision

-y

process, condition

a-, an-

no, not, without

aut-, auto

self, own

dia-

complete, through

end-, endo-

within

epi-

above, upon

ex-, exo-

out, outside of, outward

hyper-

excessive, above, more than normal

hypo-

deficient, below, under, less than normal

in-

into, in

peri-

surrounding, around

pro-

before, forward

re-

back, backward, again

retro-

behind

sub-

below, under

trans-

across, through