Ostomates

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Individuals who have undergone surgical procedures resulting in the creation of an ostomy
2. People living with an artificial opening on the body for waste elimination
3. Those requiring medical adaptation to manage bodily functions through an external pouch system

Etymology: "Ostomates" is the plural of "ostomate", a noun for a person who has a stoma, the surgically created opening that lets body waste leave the body when the usual route is blocked or removed. The word is built from "ostomy", the surgical term for creating such an opening, with the suffix "-ate", which forms nouns denoting a person or thing connected with the base. The plural simply follows the usual English pattern of adding "-s". The "-ate" ending comes from Latin "-atus", a suffix that passed into English through French and Latin-based scientific vocabulary, and it is one of the common ways English nouns gain a personal sense from a technical base. "Ostomy" itself draws on the Greek "stoma", meaning "mouth" or "opening", which is also the source of many medical terms. Because the word is a modern coinage assembled from these parts, its first recorded uses are recent and belong to medical writing rather than to older English.