Adiposus

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Characterized by the presence of an excessive amount of fatty tissue in biological entities or organisms
2. pertaining to the accumulation of fat which can influence metabolic function
3. often used in medical or biological contexts to describe individuals or specimens with significant adipose tissue

Etymology: "Adiposus" is a Latin adjective meaning "fatty" or "full of fat," formed from "adeps" (fat, lard) with the suffix "-osus," which means "full of" and turns a noun into an adjective (as in "verbosus" from "verbum"). The root "adeps" is itself the older source for the English "adipose," which came into English in the 1600s through scientific Latin. The Latin word "adiposus" was used for fleshy and fat-bearing things in classical and later writing, but its modern use in English is specialized. English took the root in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when anatomists needed precise terms for body tissues and began describing fat as "adipose tissue." Medical and biological writers now use "adiposus" mostly as a Latin label in formal anatomical and zoological descriptions, where it names specimens or individuals with a marked amount of this tissue.

Synonyms: fatty, adipose

Antonyms: lean, thin