Pathologist

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A medical expert who investigates the nature and causes of diseases by analyzing tissues, cells, and bodily fluids for diagnostic purposes
2. An individual specializing in understanding illnesses through the examination of biological specimens to reveal underlying conditions
3. A healthcare professional who studies samples from the body to identify disease and provide diagnoses

Etymology: A pathologist is named for a Greek noun meaning "suffering": "pathos" came from "páskhō," "to suffer," and it gave English a whole family of medical words. The suffix "-logy" comes from Greek "lógos," meaning "word," "reason" or "study," so pathology is literally the study of suffering, or of disease. The Greek ending "-logía" passed through Latin and French into English, where "pathology" became the name for the science of disease. The "-ist" ending adds the sense of a practitioner, the person who works in the field. It descends from a Greek suffix attached to agent nouns, passed through Latin and Old French into Middle English, and was then used in English to make words for people who practise a discipline. "Pathologist" is therefore simply "pathology" plus that ending, a specialist who studies disease.

Synonyms: doctor, specialist