Flies, bees, beetles, wasps, and other insects are segmented creatures – head, thorax, and abdomen. Where these parts join, there appears to the imaginative eye a ‘cutting in’ of the body.
Hence the branch of zoology dealing with insects is aptly named entomology, from Greek en-, in, plus tome, a cutting. The adjective is entomological.
(The word insect makes the same point – it is built on Latin in-, in, plus sectus, a form of the verb meaning to cut.)
The prefix ec-, from Greek ek-, means out. (The Latin prefix, you will recall, is ex-.) Combine ec- with tome to derive the words for surgical procedures in which parts are ‘cut out’ or removed: tonsil-lectomy (the tonsils), appendectomy (the appendix), mastectomy (the breast), hysterectomy (the uterus), prostatectomy (the prostate), etc.
Combine ec- with Greek kentron, centre (the Latin root, as we have discovered, is centrum), to derive eccentric – out of the centre, hence deviating from the normal in behavior, attitudes, etc., or unconventional odd, strange. The noun is eccentricity.
For Scientific english editing and Medical Writing Services visit www.manuscriptedit.com
