Lesson 3: Terminology (page 19 of 20)

Hepatitis means inflammation of the liver.

A couple of new words that contain the suffix -itis are:

otitis [ot-, ear + “] – inflammation of the ear
nephritis [nephr-, kidney + “] – inflammation of a kidney

The suffix -osis means a condition. We learned earlier that a neurosis [neur-, nerve + “] is a condition affecting the nerves.

When we add -osis to the Greek combining form “cyano-,” which means blue, we get our word cyanosis, which means a condition characterized by slightly bluish or purple discoloration of the skin due to a deficiency of oxygen and excess of carbon dioxide in the blood. You can probably think of many other examples of words using -osis.

What does arthrosis mean?

 a condition affecting the joints
 a condition affecting the arteries
 an infection in the joints
 an infection of the arteries