List of medical roots and affixes

This is a list of roots, suffixes, and prefixes used in medical terminology, their meanings, and their etymologies. Most of them are combining forms in Neo-Latin and hence international scientific vocabulary. There are a few general rules about how they combine. Prefixes and suffixes, most of which are derived from ancient Greek or classical Latin, have a droppable vowel, usually . Generally, this vowel acts as a joint-stem to connect two consonantal roots (e.g. + -o- + = ), but the -o- is typically dropped when connecting to a vowel-stem (e.g. arthr- + = , instead of arthr-o-itis).