Chiros

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A term referring to hands, especially in contexts involving manual skills or gestures; an informal indication of hand movements; used to denote the plural of a manipulation involving the hands
2. Denoting multiple instances of human hands often in medical or artistic settings; signifying hands as tools for physical intervention; related to the plural usage concerning the manual parts of the body
3. Used to describe several hands, particularly in therapeutic or expressive actions; pertaining to physical manipulation performed by hands; expressing the concept of multiple hand-related motions or uses

Etymology: "Chiros" is simply the plural of "chiro", a clipped form of "chiropractor" and "chiropractic". The clipping is the story here: the longer words were built from Greek roots, with "cheir" meaning "hand" and "praktikos" meaning "practical" or "concerned with doing", so the full term describes a practice carried out by hand. Shortening a long professional name into a casual abbreviation is a common move in English, and "chiro" is one of the most familiar results. Because "chiros" is only the plural of a shortened noun, it inherits the whole history of its parent words. Its everyday sense of several hand-based therapies or manipulations comes directly from the Greek "cheir" at the root of "chiropractic", which is why the word always points back to the hand.

Synonyms: chiros, chiropractors