Cicatricial

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Pertaining to the development and characteristics of scar tissue due to healing processes
2. Relating to scar formation and the changes it induces in skin or other tissues throughout the healing phase
3. Involving or connected with the formation and presence of fibrous tissue that replaces normal tissue after injury

Etymology: "Cicatricial" is a plain formation: it takes "cicatrix," the Latin word for a scar, and adds the suffix "-ial," which turns a noun into an adjective meaning "of or relating to" the noun. So a cicatricial change is one that concerns scarring. The base word is itself old, descending from the Latin verb "cicatrizare," meaning to heal over or form a scar, and it is the same root that gives English "cicatrize," the verb for forming a scar. The interest here lies in how the word is used rather than in its history. Because it is built straight from Latin material, its meaning stays close to the literal physical sense of a healed wound, which is why it appears mostly in medical writing. Doctors use it to describe tissue that contracts and hardens as a wound heals, rather than the everyday word "scar" that a general reader would reach for.

Synonyms: scar-like, healing, fibrinous, fibrous, tissue-repairing