Cardiopathic

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Relating to or affecting the heart, especially in the sense of being caused by or involving a disorder of the cardiac muscle
2. Describing a condition, agent or process that involves disease of the heart and its functioning
3. Having to do with heart disease or damage to the heart muscle and the circulatory problems that follow from it

Etymology: "Cardiopathic" is simply "cardiopathy" with the adjective ending "-ic" added. "Cardiopathy" is built from the Greek elements "kardia," meaning heart, and "pathos," meaning suffering or disease, so the whole word means something like "heart disease" in its adjectival form. The Greek elements passed into English through Latin and Old French, and the "-ic" ending, which turns a noun into a descriptive adjective, arrived through Latin "-icus" and then Middle English "-ik" before settling into its modern spelling. Because the word is a straightforward combination of a noun and a suffix, its history is largely the history of its two parts. It is a technical formation, the kind of medical adjective English builds freely from classical roots whenever a physician needs to describe a condition, so it describes something of the heart without any older folk sense attached to it.

Synonyms: cardiac