The Basics of Medical English Word Building

Medical English words consist of at least a root word. Root words are usually nouns and usually describe a body part.

A Medical English root word might be preceded by one, two, or (rarely) three prefixes. As the name implies, the prefix comes before the root word.

A Medical English root word might be followed by one, two, or (rarely) three suffixes. Suffixes come after the root word.

Many Medical English words also have a word ending that indicates its meaning. For example,

I indicate.

I have given you an indication.

Here, the ending “–tion” changes the meaning of the verb “indicate” (from the Latin indicare, “to point out, show”) to a noun describing that action or state of being. If I indicate something, that is an indication.

For example, in the development of an organism, each of the cells may become different from its parent cell (stem cell). The verb differentiate means “to become different“. The ending –tion turns the verb differentiate into the noun differentiation (we drop the –te in differentiate to make it flow better), so differentiation is the process by which each cell becomes different from the stem cell that created it.