prothesis
/ˈpɹɔθəsɪs/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.33 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The prepending of phonemes at the beginning of a word without changing its morphological structure, as in Spanish esfera from Greek (via Latin) sphaera (“sphere”) (without prothesis the word would have become *sfera).
Countable; Uncountable
noun
The preparation and preliminary oblation of the Eucharistic bread and wine in the Divine Liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches.
Countable; Uncountable
Etymology
From Late Latin prothesis, prosthesis, alteration (dropping the ‘s’) from Ancient Greek πρόσθεσις (prósthesis, “addition, augmentation”), (English prosthesis) from προστίθημι (prostíthēmi, “to add”), from πρός (prós, “towards”) + τίθημι (títhēmi, “to place”), from Proto-Indo-European *próti, *préti + *dʰédʰeh₁- (“to be putting, to be placing”). However, often confused for a descendant of the Ancient Greek word πρόθεσις (próthesis, “a preposing, preposition”) (without the σ (s)), which is instead the source of a different term – see alternative etymology, below.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈpɹɔθəsɪs/
- British English: /ˈpɹɒθəsɪs/
Usage
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
Frequently Paired Words
Synonyms
prosthesis
proskomide