Dermatologist

How to spell dermatologist

13 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce dermatologist

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does dermatologist mean?

1. nounA doctor who specialises in conditions affecting the skin, hair, and nails.

Dermatologist in a sentence

• The dermatologist examined the mole and booked it for removal.

• After months of stubborn acne, she finally saw a dermatologist.

Where does dermatologist come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word is built entirely from Greek roots. It begins with derma, meaning 'skin', whose stem dermat- appears in many medical terms, and which is itself related to derein, 'to flay' or 'to strip the hide'. To this was joined logos, a wonderfully flexible Greek word meaning 'word', 'reason', or 'study', which gives us the familiar -logy ending for fields of knowledge. The combining form dermato- joined with -logist, 'one who studies', to name a specialist in the skin. The word is a relatively modern coinage of the nineteenth century, assembled in the scientific tradition of stitching Greek parts together to label new branches of medicine. The spelling trap lives in the middle: that unstressed 'a' in dermato- is easy to drop or swap, and the silent linking is reinforced by remembering the clean root derma, 'skin'.

How the word is built

• dermato- (from Greek derma, skin)
• -log- (from logos, study/discourse)
• -ist (one who practises)