Enthesitis

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A medical condition marked by inflammation occurring at the junctions where tendons and ligaments connect to bone structures
2. This ailment features inflammatory changes localized at the sites known as entheses, affecting tendon and ligament attachments to bones
3. A disorder involving swelling and irritation where tendons or ligaments attach to bones

Etymology: Enthesitis is a modern medical coinage, built from two parts that each carry a long history of their own. The first part, "enthesis," comes from Greek "enthesis," meaning "insertion" or "a placing in," which is what a tendon or ligament does where it is inserted into bone. The second part, "-itis," is the standard suffix for inflammation, from the Greek "-itis" used in medical terms such as "arthritis" and "tonsillitis." Putting them together produces a name for inflammation at exactly those insertion points. The word is therefore not an ancient one. It was assembled from classical elements by medical writers, so the Greeks themselves never used it. Its meaning follows the literal sense of its first half: the trouble lies at the place where soft tissue is placed onto the skeleton.