Revisiting the Latin Vocabulary of Terminologia Histologica : II . Adjectives and Participles

Terminologia Histologica, the international standard nomenclature of human histology and cytology, contains 1093 Latin words that appear to be used as adjectives. Among these, we identified 56 (5%) with a variety of linguistic issues, including typographical or spelling errors, less favored spelling variants, and several unfortunate word choices, including using the prepositions cis and trans, and the noun gigans, as adjectives. The most common adjectival form was that of nominal adjectives (39%). Other common forms were simple adjectives (6%) and participles (9%), chiefly from classical Latin, and prefixed adjectives (22%) and compound adjectives (16%), primarily from neo-Latin. In addition, to simplify several microscopic anatomy terms, in accordance with the updated rules of anatomical nomenclature, we recommend that adverbs (valde, non, nec, and neque) that modify adjectives in these terms be replaced by prefixes (per- and non-).