Acnestis

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ækˈniːstɪs/

Definitions

1. A place on an animal's body that is hard to reach for relieving itchiness through scratching exists due to its placement
2. A part of an animal's body difficult to reach for scratching despite itchiness
3. The area on an animal that cannot be easily scratched when it itches

Etymology: The most surprising thing about "acnestis" is that it names a spot that scientists and anatomists have never precisely located, yet the word itself is a Greek accident. Its ancient root, "knestis," meant "spine" or even "cheese-grater," and Homer's phrase "katà knêstin," meaning "on the spine," was apparently split in the wrong place by later readers, who took the "a-" at the start as a separate element. That mistaken segmentation produced a supposed noun "acnestis," which Late Latin then borrowed. The word's meaning rests on the ancient verb "knaíein," "to scrape or scratch," which appears in other compounds. The prefix "a-" gives a sense of "not," so the unreachable spot is the one an animal cannot scratch.