Suprasternal

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Situated on the upper part of the body just above the breastbone, at the top of the sternum
2. Describing an anatomical structure or region lying directly over the sternum near the base of the neck
3. Relating to the area above the breastbone, such as the notch or space found at the top of the chest

Etymology: "Suprasternal" is a plain anatomical compound, and its parts are both Latin. The first, "supra-", comes from the Latin preposition "supra", meaning "above" or "over", which is also the source of words like "supramolecular" and "supraorbital" in modern scientific vocabulary. The second part, "sternal", describes the sternum, the flat bone at the centre of the chest. The sternum's own name comes from Greek "sternon", meaning "chest", and English took it in the same learned tradition as the adjective built from it. The adjective "sternal" was formed by adding the Latin suffix "-alis" (which gives the sense "pertaining to") to the stem of "sternum". Its Latin roots reach back into Proto-Indo-European, but the useful story is simply that medical and anatomical writers in English combined these classical building blocks to name precise locations on the body. "Suprasternal" therefore literally means "above the sternum", and it names the small region at the base of the neck, just above the breastbone, where clinicians can feel the top of the bone.