Category: O

Surgical fracture or refracture of bones. Remodeling of bone by osteoclasts, during growth or the healing of a fracture. A surgical procedure involving the controlled breaking of a long bone, done without opening the surrounding tissues, to rectify a deformity. This term is also used to describe the process of breaking down bone tissue or…

Inflammation of the esophagus, caused by acid juices from the stomach or by infection. The irritation of the esophagus is referred to as esophagitis. This condition encompasses two primary forms: corrosive esophagitis, which arises from the accidental or deliberate ingestion of caustic substances, and reflux esophagitis, triggered by the backflow of stomach contents. Cleaning and…

The ultimate source of the word oven is an Indo-European word meaning firepot and pronounced something like ukwnos. This Indo-European word evolved into the Germanic uhwnaz, which developed into the Old English ofn, first recorded in the tenth century and respelt as oven by the fourteenth century. The Indo-European ukwnos also developed along a different…

In one sense, an ounce is an inch, at least in so far as the names of both units derive from a Latin source meaning one twelfth, an inch being a twelfth of a foot, and a troy ounce being a twelfth of a pound. This Latin source—uncia—developed differently as it made its way though…

An ort was originally a scrap of food or leftover fodder not eaten by cattle or pigs. The word then came to be applied to leftovers from the kitchen table, leftovers that were also known as relief or relics. Ort appeared in the mid fifteenth century as a compound of the prefix oor, meaning not,…

Holidays such as Christmas or Thanksgiving, with their endless plates of cookies, cakes, pickles, nuts, and chocolate, are occasions of rampant opsophagy, that is, the eating of dainties. The word derives from the Greek opson, meaning rich fare (especially fish), and phagein, meaning to eat. When the desire to eat such goodies becomes overwhelming, the…

Opsony is an exact synonym for companage, the name given to anything eaten with bread to give it greater savour. The word derives from the Latin opsonium, meaning provisions, but was used for only a short time in the seventeenth century.  

Medlars make excellent jams and jellies. Those delicious preserves would perhaps be less popular if the original name for the medlar—open-arse—had not become obsolete in the nineteenth century. The fruit acquired that shocking name more than a thousand years ago, thanks to the fact that it has a deep depression at its top that looks…