Burnmouth

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A chronic condition in which the mouth, tongue or lips feel scalded or burning without any obvious physical cause
2. A painful disorder causing a persistent scorching sensation inside the mouth even when no injury or infection is visible
3. An ailment marked by a lasting burning feeling across the oral tissues, often with a bitter or metallic taste

Etymology: Burnmouth is a compound of "burn" in its old Scottish and northern English sense of "stream" or "brook," joined to "mouth," the place where a stream runs into a larger body of water. The same two elements, "burn" and "mouth," are the building blocks of Bournemouth, the seaside town on the south coast of England. The two words are doublets, meaning they descend from one common source but took different routes into modern English, so the medical term and the place name are etymological cousins. The medical sense is a modern extension. The stream-mouth meaning of the first element is what gives the word its literal core, and the clinical label "burning mouth syndrome" is simply a descriptive use of the compound applied to a condition whose main symptom is a burning sensation in the mouth.