Warts

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A type of small, benign skin growth caused by a viral infection that appears, often resembling a rough bump on the skin
2. Noncancerous elevations on the skin, typically caused by a virus, which can vary in size and shape
3. Benign outgrowths on the skin resulting from infection with human papillomavirus, commonly found on hands and feet

Etymology: "Warts" is the plural of "wart", and the word's roots run back to a Germanic ancestor shared across much of northern Europe. Its Old English form was "wearte", which passed into Middle English as "warte" and "werte" before settling into the spelling used today. Cognates survive in Dutch ("wrat"), German ("Warze"), Swedish ("vårta") and Danish ("vorte"), all pointing to a common Proto-Germanic root, "*wartǭ". The plural simply adds the regular "-s" to that noun, so the history of the plural is the history of the singular. Across the Germanic languages the word has kept its core sense of a small raised bump on the skin, which is a rare case of a body-part term staying remarkably stable across more than a thousand years of separate development.

Synonyms: blemishes, imperfections, spots, growths

Antonyms: perfections, flaws