Oculomotor

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /ˈɒk.jʊl.ə(ʊ)ˌməʊ.tə/

Definitions

1. Pertaining to the muscles or control of eye movement ; the third cranial nerve responsible for most eye muscle movements
2. Connected with the movement of the eyes by muscles ; a major nerve that enables many eye muscles to function
3. Associated with the motion of the eyeball ; a specific nerve that directs several muscles around the eye

Etymology: Oculomotor is a modern scientific coinage built from two parts: "oculo-", from Latin "oculus" meaning "eye", and "motor", from Latin "motor", a mover, from "movere" to move. Put together, the word describes anything relating to the movement of the eyes, and it is used of the muscles that turn the eyeball and of the nerve that supplies most of them. Because the word is a technical formation, its story is one of deliberate naming rather than gradual drift. The "oculo-" element is a combining form used across scientific vocabulary, which is why it appears in words like "oculist" and "oculus" in anatomical terms. Anatomists assembled the parts to name a function they had identified, so the word tells you directly what it does. The nerve it names, the third cranial nerve, is the one that moves most of the eye's muscles, so the term describes both the muscles and the nerve by their shared job.