Ptyalorrhea

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Excessive flow of saliva from the mouth, often a symptom of a medical condition or a side effect of certain drugs
2. The abnormal overproduction of spit that causes drooling, sometimes linked to illness, poisoning or medication
3. A medical term for an unusually heavy secretion of saliva, commonly known as drooling or sialorrhea

Etymology: Ptyalorrhea is a medical term for excessive flow of saliva, and its parts are classical Greek. "Ptyalon" meant saliva, and "rhoia" meant a flow or discharge, the same root that gives "diarrhea" and "rheumatism." Put together, the word literally means "saliva-flow," a plain description of what the condition is. The term is a technical coinage rather than an old folk word. Physicians and medical writers in the 18th and 19th centuries built many such names from Greek elements to describe symptoms precisely, and this one follows that pattern. Its earliest uses in English are in medical writing of that era, so the word belongs to the vocabulary of clinical description, not to ancient Greek speech. Its more familiar synonym, "sialorrhea," uses a different Greek word for saliva, "sialon," and is the more common term in modern medicine. Both mean the same thing, and both carry the same "flow" element at their end.

Synonyms: sialorrhea, hypersalivation, ptyalism

Antonyms: xerostomia, dry mouth