Osteosarcomas

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A malignant neoplasm derived from bone cells that predominantly arises in the long bones of young individuals
2. A cancerous growth that emerges from osteoblasts, frequently observed in teenagers and young adults
3. A type of cancerous tumor that develops from bone-producing cells and invades bone tissue aggressively

Etymology: The plural of "osteosarcoma", the bone cancer described above. The singular is a compound built from two Greek elements: "osteo-", from Ancient Greek "ostéon", meaning bone, and "sarcoma", a term for tumours of connective tissue, from Greek "sárx", meaning flesh. Both pieces are old, but the joined word is a modern medical coinage, assembled from classical roots to name a specific disease, so the ancient Greeks would not have recognised it as a diagnosis. The plural follows the regular English pattern: one tumour is an osteosarcoma, and several are osteosarcomas, with the final "s" marking the count rather than changing the meaning. Because the word is a technical term, it appears mostly in oncology and pathology texts, where it is used in exactly this sense.