Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Kyphosis
/kaɪˈfəʊsɪs/noun
Excessive outward curvature of the upper spine, producing a rounded back.
The Greek roots
κυφός
kyphós
bent forward, hunched
-ωσις
-ōsis
condition of
Literally: “hunched condition”
The story of the word
Hippocratic writers already used κύφωσις for the humped back, and paired it with λόρδωσις for the opposite inward curve, a distinction spinal surgeons still use unchanged. A healthy thoracic spine is mildly kyphotic; the diagnosis is about degree, not direction. Adolescents get a specific form named after the Danish radiologist Holger Scheuermann.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
lordosisscoliosis
In a sentence
Years at a low desk had left him with a pronounced kyphosis.
Physiotherapy slowed the kyphosis but could not reverse it.