Page 14 - 633 102 Professional English for Pharmacists E-Course book

● German
Ex. Bowl, ambassador, enamel

● French

Ex. Action, receive, village

● Italian

Ex. Solo, umbrella, granite

There are few tips or notices about word origin; for example, A lot of medical or
pharmaceutical terms originate from Greek and Latin. A lot of words related to law come from
Latin. Word ending with -o usually comes from Italian such as solo, duo, quarto. Sometimes words
can come from the influences of well-known things in each country such as granite. In addition,
some English words are formed from a combination of words, which is known as a portmanteau
such as Edutainment (Education + Entertainment), Brunch (Breakfast + Lunch), netiquette (Internet
+ Etiquette), Pharmaketing (Pharmacy + Marketing).

Formation of medical or pharmaceutical terms – The Word

Elements

The basic term structure can be broken down into two or more components or word
elements. This tip may teach you how to understand some unfamiliar medical terms. To define an
unfamiliar term, you will simply do the followings:

1. identify its word elements,
2. analyze the meaning of each word element, and
3. put the meanings of all the word elements together to define the word as a whole.

In order to use this approach, you will need to be familiar with the three basic types of
word elements:

1. Prefix
2. Root
3. Suffix

The combination of these 3 components will generate a ‘new term’. For example, uncomfortable:
not feeling comfortable and pleasant, or not making you feel comfortable or pleasant. This word
comes from un (not) as prefix, comfort as root, and able (can, to make as suffix. Most medical
terms are from Greek or Latin origins although some other languages like German and French
may also have influenced health terms. In fact, it is found that the terms related to diagnosis and
surgery have Greek origin while most anatomical terms derive from Latin.

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