Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

melanophagy

Word Rarity Very rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English

Syllables: melanophagy
IPA

22

Scrabble Score

11

Letters

1

Syllables

10

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

The loss (by "eating away") of melanin

Uncountable

Example Sentences

"Melanin-bearing keratinocytes are more in number in the epidermal type; phagocytes with melanophagy in the papillary dermis characterize the dermal type of melasma."
"Only some eye defects were reported, including iris synechiae, melanophagy in the iris or the ciliary body ..."
"In this study, we showed that ursolic acid inhibits skin pigmentation by promoting melanosomal autophagy, or melanophagy, in melanocytes."

Etymology

From melano- + -phagy.

Word Breakdown

Prefix: melano
Suffix: phagy

Usage

Uncountable

Questions

What does melanophagy mean?: The loss (by "eating away") of melanin
Where does melanophagy come from?: From melano- + -phagy.

How to pronounce melanophagy

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