Etymology

holoprosencephaly

Today it means: A congenital disorder involving insufficient division of the lobes of the brain during fetal development, resulting in skull and facial deformities ranging from minor cleft lip problems to cyclopia, in which a single eye develops where the nose would normally be. Full definition →

Ancient Greek ὅλος
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The story

  1. Ancient Greek · derived fromὅλος“whole”
  2. English todayholoprosencephaly

From Ancient Greek ὅλος (hólos, “whole”) + πρόσω (prósō, “forwards, onwards”) (referring to the prosencephalon (“forebrain”)) + ἐγκέφαλος (enképhalos, “brain”) + English -y (suffix denoting a condition), i.e. “condition of a whole (inappropriately divided) forebrain”. By surface analysis, holo- + pros- + encephal- + -y.

Words from the same roots

Ancient Greekὅλος all →

hologramholonholardholenmerismholo-holocrineholomicticholonymy

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.