Lateralise

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To assign a particular mental or physical function to one hemisphere of the brain or one side of the body ; to cause an effect or process to be confined to a single side
2. Relating a specific ability or activity to one half of the brain or body ; making a condition or reaction occur only on one side of an organism
3. To pinpoint the seat of a function on one side of the nervous system ; to restrict a physical or neurological effect so that it affects only one lateral half

Etymology: "Lateralise" is a plain formation: the adjective "lateral", from Latin "lateralis" (relating to the side, from "latus", side), with the verb-forming suffix "-ise" added to it. The verb means to localise something to one side of the body or brain, and in modern use it is most often applied to the brain, where certain functions are found to be concentrated in the left or right hemisphere. The stem "lateral" carries the whole meaning. Its Latin root "latus" gives English a set of related words, such as "latitude" and "platitude," which share the same ancestor and whose senses also point to breadth and extent. "Lateralise" simply takes the notion of sideness and turns it into an action: to assign a function or feature to one side. The suffix "-ise" (also spelled "-ize" in American English) is a common way of turning adjectives and nouns into verbs, as in "modernise" or "standardise." Here it is added to a word that already describes a side, so the verb means, in effect, to make something a matter of one side.