Hundreds of body parts are named after hair: is anatomical terminology supercilious or simply super silly?

Abstract

Relatively more-apparent body parts are often used to name relatively less-apparent body parts. To explore this etymological phenomenon, this report assesses anatomical terminology derived from some of the most apparent structures of the human body—hairs. Hair-related anatomical terminology involves varied etymons, roots, and derivatives: calvus “bald,” cilia “eyelashes,” glaber “hairless,” pilus “hair,” pubes (historically referring to the developing beard), pudendum “modesty” (referring to hair growth that covers genitalia), tempus “time” (referring to the location where hair commonly grays, thus showing a person’s age), and tragus “goat” (referring to the tuft of hair that resembles the beard of a goat). Also including lanugo, vibrissae, hirci, flocculus, and cauda equina, a systematic review of Terminologia Anatomica and Terminologia Neuroanatomica revealed 285 unique non-duplicate hair-related terms. Several anatomical terms allude to particular age groups or sexes, but are used indiscriminately (e.g., tragus alludes to the older male ear, though may describe the fetal female ear). Likewise, human-centric anatomical terminology influences non-human anatomical terminology— a turtle has a “temporal bone” only because some humans develop gray hair on the sides of their heads as they age. Accordingly, etymological recursion is common: The human ear has a tragus, named after the goat, and the goat ear has a tragus, named after the human tragus, that was named after the goat. The use of Latin as the foundation of anatomical and medical terminology may appear seriously supercilious; however, it is often simply super silly. After all, hundreds of body parts are formally named after hair.