Trichinosis

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A disease caused by infection with tiny roundworms, usually acquired by eating undercooked pork or wild game containing their larvae
2. An illness produced when parasitic worm larvae, often picked up from raw or undercooked meat, settle in the muscles and intestines
3. A parasitic condition in which roundworm larvae lodge in human tissue after being swallowed in contaminated meat that was not thoroughly cooked

Etymology: Trichinosis is a disease named for the parasite that causes it: the roundworm "Trichinella spiralis," whose name combines the Greek "trichinos," meaning "of hair," with the Latin-style Greek suffix "-osis," used in medicine for a diseased or abnormal condition. The worm itself is tiny, and the name points to its appearance under the microscope, where the larvae look like threads or hairs curled inside muscle tissue. The word was built in New Latin, the scholarly Latin used by European scientists from the early modern period onward, rather than inherited from classical antiquity. The ancient Greeks had "trichinos" and the medical suffix "-osis," but nobody in their time described this infection, so the compound is a modern coinage assembled from older parts. Its first element, "trich-," is the same root that gives English "trichology," the study of hair.

Synonyms: trichinellosis, trichinelliasis