Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Metatarsal
/ˌmɛtəˈtɑːrsəl/noun
Any of the five long bones running from the ankle to the toes.
The Greek roots
μετά
metá
after, beyond
ταρσός
tarsós
flat of the foot
Literally: “beyond the flat of the foot”
The story of the word
Beyond the ankle block sit five long bones that take the load every time you push off, which is why they crack under athletes. British newspapers learned the word in 2002, when David Beckham broke his second metatarsal weeks before a World Cup and the country spent a month discussing foot anatomy. The Greek ταρσός underneath it was a wicker drying rack before it was any part of a body.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Modern Latin → English
- First recorded
- 18th century
Same family
tarsustarsalmetacarpalmetamorphosis
In a sentence
A stress fracture in the fifth metatarsal is the one that refuses to heal quietly.