sclerosis
Meaning
A medical condition in which a part of the body becomes hard, especially because of abnormal growth of connective tissue.
The process of becoming hard or rigid.
Structure
Usage
Multiple sclerosis is a chronic disease that affects the central nervous system.
Arteriosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, increases the risk of heart attack and stroke.
The biopsy revealed signs of sclerosis in the affected organ.
Etymology
The word 'sclerosis' is a direct borrowing from Medieval Latin, which itself derived from the Greek sklērōsis, meaning "hardening". The Greek root sklēros (hard) is of uncertain deeper origin but is fundamental in medical terminology to denote hardness. The suffix -ōsis is a productive Greek nominal suffix indicating a process or pathological state. Thus, the term's literal construction, "the condition/process of being hard", has been preserved with precise technical accuracy in modern medical English, specifically referring to the pathological hardening of tissue.
Analysis
scler: From Greek sklēros, meaning "hard". It functions as the root conveying the core semantic concept of hardness. osis: From Greek -ōsis, a suffix used to form nouns denoting a state, condition, or process, especially a diseased or abnormal condition.