Tineas

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A group of fungal infections affecting the skin, scalp, feet, or nails, characterized by itching, redness, and scaling commonly called ringworm
2. Various contagious dermatophytic infections causing ring-shaped, inflamed patches on skin or hair loss on scalp, often accompanied by itchiness
3. Superficial fungal disorders involving skin, hair, or nails presenting as circular lesions, scaling, and sometimes inflammation due to dermatophyte fungi

Etymology: "Tineas" is the plural of "tinea", and the term has an unexpectedly insect-related origin. In Latin, "tinea" meant "moth" or "bookworm", the grub that gnaws through cloth and paper. The medical sense arose because the skin condition was imagined as something eating away at the body in the same way a moth or worm eats through fabric, with the ring-shaped patches and hair loss resembling the damage such creatures leave behind. The name thus transfers a creature's destructive habit onto a human ailment. The plural "tineas" simply follows the Latin pattern for names of several distinct infections, so it refers to more than one type of fungal disease grouped under the same label.

Synonyms: ringworm, dermatophytosis, fungal infection