Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Medical word parts ancylo- and ancyr-


On Struggling Student's Memory Guide we use association and mnemonic memory techniques to help us remember educational information. I think you'll find these techniques faster and more entertaining to use than rote memorization. While most of the posts are about medical terms we've also covered The Bill of Rights, The Preamble, Bloom's Taxonomy, Electron's sub-shell configurations, and currently I'm posting the Periodic Table by Atomic Numbers. So far only the first twenty five elements but the rest will follow as time allows.

blue emboldened words are common or academic terms that can be used for association purposes because they contain the same word part as a medical or scientific term.


reddish brown emboldened words are medical terms that should be looked up in a medical dictionary for their figurative meanings.


orange emboldened words are terms from other fields of study that may be of interest to some people.



ancylo- from Gr. ankylos, bent, curved, crooked, is a Zoological word part meaning "hooked, curved, or crooked". [angle, from Gr. ankos, a bend, ankle, Ancylostoma, lit. hooked mouth (hookworm), ancylostomiasis, lit. hookworm condition, Angles, a hook shaped district of Schleswig from which a group of German conquerors of England came in the 5th century and from which we get the terms Anglo- and England, Ancylus, Zoo. genus of snails with limpet-shaped shells]

ancyr- from Gr. ankyra, anchor, means "shaped like an anchor fluke". [angle, from Gr. ankos, a bend, anchor, ancyroid, lit. resembles an anchor] (see ancon-)

Memory Story for ancylo-: You're wading through the Nile's warm waters when you see giant Ancylostoma hookworms hook on to your ankle (ancylo-, rel.) wiggle into your skin and are making a beeline for your intestines with your first symptom being a swelling of your abdomen.

No memory story for ancyr- because the word association is so close.

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