Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Zygomatic
/ˌzaɪɡəˈmætɪk/adjective
Of the cheekbone and the arch of bone running from it back toward the ear.
The Greek roots
ζύγωμα
zýgōma
yoke-bar, cheekbone
Literally: “of the yoke-bone”
Follow a root:ζύγωμα1 word
The story of the word
ζυγόν is a yoke, the wooden bar laid across two oxen, and Greek anatomists called the cheekbone arch ζύγωμα because it yokes the temporal bone to the upper jaw. Put a finger on the ridge under your eye and run it back to the ear: that is the yoke. The same root made zygote in the late nineteenth century, two cells yoked into one, and the figure of speech called zeugma, where one verb drags two objects behind it.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → modern Latin → English
- First recorded
- 18th century
Same family
zygotesyzygyzeugmayoke
In a sentence
The punch fractured the zygomatic arch and nothing else.
Zygomatic implants anchor into the cheekbone when the upper jaw has too little bone left.