Prosthetic

How to spell prosthetic

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce prosthetic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does prosthetic mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to an artificial device that replaces a missing or damaged part of the body.
2. nounAn artificial body part, or an artificial appliance worn to replace or alter appearance.

Prosthetic in a sentence

• adjective

  The veteran was fitted with a prosthetic leg after his recovery.

• noun

  The clinic custom-builds each prosthetic to match the patient's other limb.

• adjective

  Advances in prosthetic technology now let users control fingers with muscle signals.

• noun

  The film crew spent hours applying a facial prosthetic to the lead.

Where does prosthetic come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek prosthesis, meaning 'an addition' or 'a putting in place', which was built from prostithenai, 'to add to'. That verb in turn joined pros, meaning 'toward' or 'in addition to', with tithenai, the common Greek verb 'to place' or 'to put'. Greek grammarians first used prosthesis for the addition of a sound or letter to the front of a word, a purely linguistic idea. Physicians and anatomists later borrowed the term in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to describe the artificial replacement of a missing body part, and the adjective prosthetic followed. The same tithenai root quietly sits inside words like thesis and synthesis, and remembering that 'th' is doing the work of the Greek 'place' part helps fix the tricky middle of the spelling.

How the word is built

• pros- (toward, in addition to)
• thet (from Greek tithenai: to place, put)
• -ic (adjective suffix)