The story
- Latin · derived frommale
- English todaymalocclusion
First attested in 1888. Formed as mal- (“wrong”, “improper(ly)”: ultimately from the Classical Latin male, “badly”, “wrongly”; from malus, “bad”; compare the ben- element in benocclusion) + occlusion (“alignment of the teeth in closed jaws”).
Words from the same roots
Latinmale all →
morphewmal-malversation
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.