Basic Medical Terminology - W, X, Y and Z Quiz

Answer: yellow

Xanth/o is a word part meaning yellow (from the Greek "xanthos"). Examples include xanthoma (yellowish skin lesion), xanthochromia (yellowish discolouration) and xanthopsia ("yellow vision", a visual condition where all objects appear to have a yellowish tinge).

Answer: stranger

This word part is derived from the Greek "xenos" meaning foreigner or stranger. Perhaps the most commonly known example is the word xenophobia, which is defined medically as an excessive fear of strangers or foreigners or anything that is strange or foreign (although usually it refers to people). There is a school of thought that xenophobia is the underlying cause of racism. Racism is more than just fear or hatred of people of a different race to oneself -it also encompasses the belief that the differences indicate an inherent superiority of one's own particular race.

Another example is xenograft (also called a heterograft) - a living tissue graft from one animal to another of a different species; for example, pig heart valves may be transplanted into human hearts.

Answer: dry

Xer/o is a word part that signifies a dry condition (from the Greek "xeros" meaning dry or withered). Xerox photocopiers derived their brand name from the same source and were so-named because the printing was "dry" (as opposed to other forms of printing which involved the use of wet ink).

Other examples include specific conditions of dryness such as xerostomia (mouth), xeroderma (skin) and xerophthalmia (eye).

Answer: condition of

The letter -y on the end of a medical term usually indicates a medical condition or a process; e.g. pregnancy (the condition of being pregnant) and endoscopy (the process of viewing inside the body). Endoscopy is derived from endo- (within), scop/o (to view) and -y (process of).

Answer: animal

The Greek word "zoion", meaning animal, is the basis of medical terms such as zoonosis (singular) and zoonoses (plural), referring to infectious diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans, such as rabies, typhus, cowpox, and toxoplasmosis.

Other terms include zoophobia (excessive fear of animals), zoopsia (visual hallucinations of animals), and zoogenic (caused by or associated with animals and/or their activities).

Answer: enzyme or catalyst

An enzyme is a chemical, specifically a protein, that acts as a catalyst in a chemical reaction; that is, it speeds up the rate at which the reaction occurs. Biological enzymes are essential to the chemical reactions that occur within our bodies, particularly digestion and metabolism.

They are also essential in processes such as beer brewing and wine-making. The word enzyme is ultimately derived from the Greek "zymos" meaning yeast.

Answer: white blood cell (abbreviation)

White blood cells are also called leucocytes (British spelling) or leukocytes (American spelling). Leuc/o or leuk/o means white and -cyte means cell. The white cell count is a useful means of diagnosing disease. A high white cell count could indicate a number of medical conditions, such as allergy, bacterial or viral infections, inflammation, bone marrow disease, leukaemia, rheumatoid arthritis, tuberculosis, whooping cough, and appendicitis.

A low white cell count could indicate viral infection, cancer or an auto-immune disorder.

Answer: viral-caused tumour

"Wart" is derived from the Germanic languages (e.g. German, Dutch and Frisian) and refers to a benign (i.e. not cancerous) skin lesion caused by infection with the human papillomavirus. Typically they are small, hard and rough but, as there are many different types of papillomaviruses, there are also many different types of warts, so their appearance can vary. Warts have been documented as a medical condition as far back as the time of Hippocrates (c. 460-370 BCE).

Answer: fertilised egg

A zygote is a fertilised egg cell, or the union of the female egg cell (ovum) and the male sperm cell. The zygote is the first stage of development of an individual human being. It comes from the Greek word "zygotos" meaning yoked or joined. Although many sources credit the coining of the term zygote to William Bateson (1861-1926), an English biologist, it was actually coined in 1878 by Eduard Strasburger (1844-1912), a German botanist/cytologist.

Answer: sword-shaped

The Greek word "xiphos", meaning sword, gives us the anatomical term xiphoid, referring to the xiphoid process. The xiphoid process is the lowermost tip of the breastbone or sternum, so-called because it resembles the tip of a sword.

The suffix -oid means like or resembling (derived from the Greek "-oeides" meaning form). Thus xiphoid means "like a sword". Many body parts have names that end in -oid because they are shaped like or resembling a commonly known item or object - for example, mastoid (like a breast or nipple), arachnoid membrane (like a spider web), scaphoid bone (boat-shaped), thyroid (like a shield), deltoid muscle (triangular, like the Greek letter delta), and sigmoid colon (S-shaped, like the Greek letter sigma).