Acro- Words: “acroneurosis” to “polyacron”,
Part 2 of 2.
acro-, acr- (Greek: high, highest, highest point; top, tip end, outermost; extreme; extremity of the body).
 If you would like to take a self-scoring quiz over some of the words in this section, then click Acro-Quiz, or the button, so you can see how much you know about some of the following “acro-” words.
acroneurosis:
Any neuropathy of the extremities.
acronical, acronically, acronycal:
Happening at sunset, as the rising of a star.
acronych, acronychal, acronyctous:
Happening in the evening or at night-fall, vespertine, as the acronychal rising or setting of a star. Sometimes this term is used as if “rising in the evening or at sunset and setting at sunrise”; but this is not correct. When the rising is acronychal, the setting is cosmical, and vice versa. (According to the Oxford English Dictionary).
acronychous:
Having claws, nails, or hoofs.
acronym, acronymic, acronymically:
A word formed from the first (or first few) letters of a series of words; as with radar, that comes from radio detecting and ranging; NATO, which comes from North Atlantic Treaty Organization; scuba, which comes from self-contained underwater apparatus; and sonar, which comes from sound navigation ranging.
acronyx:
In-growing nail (on the hand or foot); in-grown fingernail or toenail.
acro-osteolysis:
Osteolysis (a softening and destruction of bone) involving the distal (farthest from the center, from a medial line, or from the trunk) phalanges of the fingers and toes.
acropachia:
A condition seen in dogs, characterized by hyeperostosis of the bones of the limbs, later involving other skeletal regions; it may be associated with tumors or tuberculosis.
acropachy:
1. A thickening of the fingers and toes as a consequence of a pathologic condition that affects the periosteum and subcutaneous tissues, as in hyperthyroidism or hypertrophic pulmonary osteoarthropathy.
2. Thickening of peripheral tissues; seen most often in
hypothyroidism and hypertrophic pulmonary osteoarhropathy.
acropachyderma:
Thickening of the skin over the extremities, as occurs in acromegaly and pachydermoperiostitis.
acroparalysis:
Paralysis of the extremities (includes hands and feet).
acroparesthesia:
A disease marked by attacks of tingling, numbness, and stiffness in the extremities, chiefly the fingers, hands, and forearms; usually due to a carpal tunnel syndrome but also from other causes.
acropathology:
The pathology of diseases affecting the extremities.
acropathy:
Any disease of the extremities.
acropetal, acropetally:
1. Developing upward from the base toward the apex or tip.
2. Rising toward the summit.
acrophobe:
A person who is excessively afraid of being in high places.
acrophobia:
An abnormal fear of being in high places.
acrophony, acrophonic, acrophonetic:
The sound of the initial or beginning; the use of what was originally a picture-symbol or hieroglyph of an object to represent phonetically the initial syllable or sound of the name of the object; e.g. employing the symbol of an ox, “aleph,”, to represent the syllable or letter “a”.
acrophyte:
A plant growing at a high altitude; an alpine plant.
acropigmentation:
Hyperpigmentation of the dorsal surfaces of the fingers and toes beginning in early childhood and usually increasing with age; more common in persons of dark complexion.
acropleustophyte:
A large aquatic plant that floats freely at the surface of the water.
acropodium:
1. In birds, the upper surface of the foot.
2. Digits (fingers or toes).
acropolis, Acropolis:
1. A city at the top or on a hill, such as the Acropolis of Athens, Greece.
2. The fortified citadel of a city in ancient Greece usually on a high place.
acropustulosis:
Pustular (small circumscribed elevation of the skin, containing purulent material) eruptions of the hands and feet, often a form of psoriasis.
acroposthitis:
Inflammation of the prepuce (foreskin).
acrosarc:
A pulpy berry resulting from union of ovary and calyx.
acrosclerosis, acroscleroderma:
Stiffness and tightness of the skin of the fingers, with atrophy of the soft tissue and osteoporosis of the distal phalanges of the hands and feet; a limited form of progressive systemic sclerosis occurring with Raynaud’s phenomenon.
acroscopic:
Facing towards the apex, opposite of basiscopic.
acrosome:
1. A structure at the end of a sperm cell that releases enzymes to digest the cell membrane of an egg, enabling the sperm to penetrate and enter the egg for fertilization.
2. Body at the apex of spermatozoon; apical body; perforatorium.
acrospire:
The first shoot or sprout, being spiral, at the end of a germinating seed.
acrospiroma:
A tumor of the distal dermal segment of a sweat gland.
acrospore, acrosporous:
1. The spore at the apex of a sporophore.
2. A spore produced at the apex of a hypha or cellular filament
forming the structural element of fungi; a basidiospore.
acrostealgia:
Painful inflammation of the bones of the hands and feet.
acrostic, acrostical, acrostichic:
1. A number of lines of writing, especially a poem or word puzzle, in which particular letters, e.g., the first, in each line spell a word or phrase.
2. A short poem (or other composition) in which the initial letters of the lines, taken in order, spell a word, phrase, or sentence. Sometimes the last or middle letters of the lines, or all of them, are similarly arranged to spell words, etc., whence a distinction of single, double, or triple acrostics.
3. A Hebrew poem in which the consecutive lines or verses begin with the successive letters of the alphabet.
acrostichal:
Situated in the highest rank or row—used of certain bristles on the mesonotum of muscoid flies.
acrostichoid:
Resembling the commencement of lines of poetry.
acrosticism:
The method of acrostics; acrostichal arrangement or character.
acrostomorphilia:
A paraphilia (sexual deviation or sexual perversion) in which sexual arousal is dependent on the sexual partner having an amputated stump.
acrosyndesis:
In genetics, a pairing activity of homologous chromosomes at meiosis that involves the terminal portions of the chromosomes.
acroteleutic:
Among Ecclesiastical writers, the end of a verse or psalm, or something added thereto to be sung by the people.
acroter, acroterial, acroterion, acroterium:
1. The pinnacles or other ornaments standing in ranges on the horizontal coping or parapets of a building.
2. On classical buildings, one of the angles of a pediment; also, a statue or other ornament placed at one of these; especially, at the apex.
acroteriasm:
1. Amputation of the extremities.
2. The act of cutting off the extreme parts of the body, when putrefied, with a saw.
acroteric:
1. Pertaining to the tips or outermost parts.
2. The outermost points, as tips of digits, end of the nose, ears, and tail.
acrotic:
1. Pertaining to the absence or weakness of the pulse.
2. Pertaining to the surface or outside of certain diseases.
acrotism:
Absence or imperceptibility of the pulse.
acrotomous:
Having a cleavage parallel with the base.
acrotrophic:
1. Ovariole having nutritive cells at the apex which are joined to oocytes by nutritive cords.
2. In zoology, Having the vitelligenous cells grouped at the apex; said of the meroistic ovariole of certain insects.
acrotrophodynia:
Pain, sensory loss, and trophic changes affecting the distal extremities, usually the feet, that can follow prolonged exposure of the limbs to cold and moisture.
acrotrophoneurosis:
Trophoneurotic disturbance of the extremities. Trophoneurotic is any trophic (nourishment) disorder caused by a defective function of the nerves concerned with nutrition of the part.
acrotropism, acrotropic:
An orientation response resulting in the continued growth of a plant in the direction in which growth originally commenced.
pachyacria:
Enlargement or the thickening of the skin of the soft tissue of the extremities.
polyacron:
A solid having many vertices or solid angles; a polyhedron.
 You may take a self-scoring quiz over some of the words in this section by just clicking on Acro- Quiz #2 to check your word knowledge.
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