Medical Dictionaries

Medical Dictionaries

Medical terminology can be hard enough for medical students to learn, let alone anyone else. You can look up medical terms on the internet, of course, but what if you have a long list of terms you need to understand? What if having an authoritative source of information is important, and you don't have the time to search everything individually? In that case, a medical dictionary might be your best bet.

Medical dictionaries only include words that are related to medical and health topics. Many medical dictionaries include illustrations to help you understand what a condition (warts, anyone?) looks like. They include common medical terms like "arthritis," offering specific definitions of different varieties of the condition. And then there are the extremely unfamiliar terms. "Under "A," you can find words like "apraxia," "arcus senilis," and "avulsion." Under "Z," you can find "zeolite," "zonulitis," and "zygoma."

Some of our medical dictionaries are available in the reference section, but others can be checked out. For a reference book with some good illustrations, try "Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary." Or, if you would like to take a medical dictionary home, a copy of "Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary" is available for checkout in our nonfiction section.

Submitted by Elizabeth Johnston