Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Epicondylitis
/ˌɛpɪˌkɒndɪˈlaɪtɪs/noun
Painful inflammation of the tendons where they attach to the bony bump at the elbow.
The Greek roots
ἐπί
epí
upon, over
κόνδυλος
kóndylos
knuckle
-ῖτις
-îtis
inflammation
Literally: “inflammation above the knuckle”
The story of the word
Tennis elbow, in the language of the clinic. κόνδυλος was the knuckle and, by extension, a punch thrown with it, so a condyle in anatomy is a rounded knob at the end of a bone and the epicondyle is the smaller bump just above it. The suffix -ῖτις was a Greek feminine adjective ending agreeing with an unspoken νόσος, disease, which is how every inflammation in medicine ended up grammatically feminine.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
Same family
condylearthritisepidermisepilogue
In a sentence
Six weeks of rest did nothing for the epicondylitis, so he finally changed his grip.
Plumbers get medial epicondylitis far more often than golfers do.