Is there anyone that could possibly help me understand medical terminology? My college course has transitioned to an all online setting with in-class closed book exams.

Question

I'm having a hard time understanding the difference in word roots and combining forms.

For instance: she wants us to break apart words like cephalic and transverse into the following categories:

plural noun ending
singular noun ending
suffix
word root
combining form
prefix

Any knowledgeable help is welcome!!! Thanks!

Answer 1

Start with a very good dictionary ... or several. Here is a good place to begin:
http://www.onelook.com
Once you enter a word here, you'll find its entries in a number of dictionaries.

Here's an example:
http://www.onelook.com/?w=cephalic&ls=a

Now ... look at that word's entry in American Heritage and Merriam-Webster.

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/cephalic
Here you'll see the word divided into syllables (ce phal ic), you can hear it pronounced, and you can read about its etymology (history of the word).

"cephal" is the root of this word and "ic" is the suffix, which makes the word an adjective.

Try this with other words and see what you find.