Medical word part -agog-, -agogue

If every high school student remembered the meanings of about a thousand medical word parts they'd have the fundamental building blocks of a medical vocabulary. The Struggling Student's Memory Guide goal is to help them remember these word parts meanings and other important educational information faster and more efficiently using association and mnemonic memory techniques.

blue emboldened words are common or college terms that can be use for word association purposes.

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

Word part and memory story from High Speed Memory Techniques for Medical Terminology.

-agog-, -agogue from Gr. agogos, leading forth means "leader, a stimulant, or a drawing forth". [demagogue, lit. people leader, fig. rabble rouser, pedagogue, lit. child leader, fig. educator, galactagogue, lit. milk stimulant, helminthagogue, lit. drawing forth worms, hydragogue, lit. drawing forth water]

Memory Story: You're an ancient Egyptian courtier whose Pharaoh has just died. They bring out you new leader whose first words are "ah goo goo". (-agog-) And. You think you're going to die. You have discovered the hard way that a grog (-agog-, not related) made from raisins, sugar, and yeast, created in the basement of the local fraternity, stimulates simultaneous emesis and diarrhea. You've never been stimulated like this before and hope it never happens again.

Medical word agapism

If every high school student remembered the meanings of a little over a thousand medical word parts they'd have the fundamental vocabulary building blocks to become the doctors and other health science professionals of tomorrow. Struggling Student's Memory Guide uses long-term memory techniques like association and mnemonics to make this endeavor more efficient and more  entertaining than using rote memorization, the much maligned short-term memory technique we all know too well. 

orange emboldened words are terms from other fields of study that some people may find helpful and interesting.

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

Medical term and memory story from High Speed Memory Techniques for Medical Terminology.

agapism from Gr. agape means "brotherly love, non-sexual love". [agapanthus, Bot. lit. the flower of brotherly love, fig. the common lily of the Nile]

Memory Story: [You're a groom.] It's your wedding night and there's a ten foot gap (agape, not related) and a string of barbed wire between the two beds in your honeymoon suite. She always said she loved you like a brother and she plans to keep it that way.

Remembering medical and scientific word parts acet- and acetabul-

The goal of Struggling Student's Memory Guide is to develop ways to use association and mnemonic memory techniques, instead of rote memorization, to remember educational information we can use for a lifetime.

blue emboldened words are common or college terms that can be used for word association purposes.

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

Word part and memory story from High Speed Memory Techniques for Medical Terminology.

acet-, aceto- from L. acetum, vinegar from acere, to be sour means "acetic acid". [acetic, lit. to be sour, fig. having to do with vinegar, acetabulum, acetate, Chem., acetyl, Chem., peracetate, Chem.] (see -ac-) (see acetabul-)

Memory story: Wearily you take a seat (acet-) in the vat of stomped grape juice that has turned into vinegar now that you've been demonstrating the age old technique in the same juice for about a week. This was not what you had in mind when you volunteered to be in the Renaissance Faire.

acetabul-, acetabulo- from L. acetabulum, a little saucer for vinegar, means "acetabulum, the cup shaped depression in the hipbone which the head of the femur fits into". [acetabular, lit. having to do with the acetabulum, acetabulectomy, lit. the cutting or excision of the acetabulum, acetabuloplasty, lit. the shaping or fashioning of the acetabulum] (There's no memory story for acetabulum because I felt the association between acetic and acetabulum would adequately fulfill our memory needs.)

Remembering medical/scientific word part -aceae, -acea

The goal of Struggling Student's Memory Guide is to develop ways to use associations and mnemonics instead of rote memorization in school. to quickly remember useful educational information for a lifetime.





These medical word parts and their memory story have been taken from High Speed Memory Techniques for Medical Terminology.





-acea from L. -acea, means "classes or orders of animals". [Crustacea, lit. crusty animals class, Testacea, lit. shelled animal class]





-aceae from L. -aceae, means "orders of families of plants". [Bacteriodaceae, lit. looks like a staff or club plant family, Gymnoascaceae, lit. naked bladder planat family]





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





Memory story: While out in the garden your patient named Ace ate a plant and now he's hallucinating. He believes he is turning into various jungle beasts and is repeatedly describing the hallucination to you as if he were Tarzan. "Ace ate (-aceae) plant. Ace a (-acea) animal now. Ace ate plant. Ace a...." (This memory story uses short logically arranged sentences which require some repetition. It is alway best to keep sentences under four or five words whenever possible because oral information has to be drilled by our short-term memory. Try as we may we can't eliminate rote completely.)

When we do -asis in a few weeks I will post a way I've developed for remembering the intangible meanings of many suffixes using acronyms. Until then let me include this little tidbit that should be posted here even though it isn't really a medical or scientific word ending. Word ending -aceous found in the common terms herbaceous or crustaceous means "belongs to, like, nature of."

So if you're so inclined, add this little phrase on to the end of the memory story above. "Ace's house (-aceous) belong to LioN (like, nature of) now."