1. Morphology, medical terminology, cases and declensions
Covers how Latin and Greek build medical terminology, with anatomical terms in Latin, clinical terms mostly in Greek and pharmaceutical terms in Latin. It then explains the grammatical categories of the noun and how a noun is learnt in dictionary form. A table of the six cases with their uses in terminology is followed by a table of the five declensions keyed to the genitive singular ending, and it closes with how adjectives and genitives are placed after the noun in a term.
Topic 1 of 23 in the MU Sofia syllabus for Latin (Dental Medicine, Year 1). The free AceMed note covers it in 5 sections, about 195 words (3 min of reading), with 16 flashcards.
In this note
Medical terminology
Grammatical categories of the noun
Cases
The five declensions
How a term is put together
Medical terminology
Medical terminology is built mainly from Latin and Greek. Each field leans on one of them:
Anatomical terms are Latin: musculus masseter, arteria facialis, dens molaris.
Pharmaceutical terms (drugs, prescriptions) are Latin: Recipe, tabuletta, Natrii fluoridum.
Terms are mostly nouns and adjectives; verbs appear mainly in prescriptions (Recipe, Misce, Da, Signa).
Grammatical categories of the noun
Every Latin noun has a gender (masculine, feminine or neuter), a number (singular or plural) and a case.
A noun is learnt in its dictionary form: nominative singular, genitive singular ending, gender. For example costa, -ae f (rib), nervus, -i m (nerve), os, ossis n (bone), arcus, -us m (arch), facies, -ei f (surface, face).
Cases
In anatomy the nominative and genitive do almost all the work; the accusative and ablative matter in prescriptions and clinical phrases.
The five declensions
The genitive singular ending tells you the declension, and so how the word changes:
Continue reading free
The whole note, all 5 sections, is free with an AceMed account, with its 16 flashcards. Premium adds flashcard recall, highlights and Ask AI.
