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URL of this page: https://medlineplus.gov/medwords/medicalwords.html

Understanding Medical Words Tutorial
from the National Library of Medicine

This tutorial teaches you about medical words. You'll learn how parts of medical words are put together. You'll also find quizzes to check what you've learned.

You can use this tutorial on our website or download Understanding Medical Words Tutorial (PDF, 1.3 MB).

This tutorial covers terms like ones for bones and muscles. Muscles equals myo. Shoulder equals scapul. Arm equals brachi or brachio. Wrist equals carp or carpo. Rib equals cost or costo. Back equals dorsa. Bones equals oste or osteo. Foot equals pod, podo, ped, or pedo.

What's in this for me?

  • Find out why you and your doctor sometimes are speaking different languages.
  • Learn how to put together parts of medical words.
  • See what you've learned by taking short quizzes.
  • Learn more with links to lists of word parts and abbreviations.
  • Download the materials mentioned above for this tutorial.

Start the tutorial