nummular

English[edit]

WOTD – 11 January 2022

Nummular dermatitis (sense 2.1), a skin inflammation, is characterized by coin-shaped lesions.

From Latin nummulus (“(small amount of) money”) + English -ar (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘of, pertaining to, or near’).^[1] Nummulus is the diminutive of nummus (“a coin; piece of money”) + -ulus (diminutive suffix); while nummus is from Doric Greek νοῦμμος (noûmmos), from Ancient Greek νόμος (nómos, “kind of coin”), from νέμω (némō, “to deal out, dispense, distribute”) (from Proto-Indo-European *nem- (“to distribute; to give; to take”)) + -ος (-os, suffix forming nouns).

nummular (comparative more nummular, superlative most nummular)

(obsolete, rare) Of or relating to coins or money.
Synonyms: monetary, numismatic, nummary, nummulary
(by extension) Flattened with a rounded form, as a disc; coin-shaped.
Synonym: coinlike
1. (pathology) Characterized by lesions (especially on the cornea or skin) which are round with well-defined borders.
2. (pathology, obsolete) Of sputum: forming flat, round shapes (formerly thought to be a symptom of tuberculosis).
  Synonyms: (obsolete, rare) nummulary, (obsolete) nummulated
  - [1839, Robley Dunglison, “NUMMULAR”, in Medical Lexicon. A New Dictionary of Medical Science, […], 2nd edition, Philadelphia, Pa.: Lea and Blanchard, successors to Carey and Co., →OCLC, page 421, column 2:
    NUMMULAR […] An epithet applied to the sputa in phthisis, when they flatten at the bottom of the vessel, like a piece of money.]

flattened with a rounded form; coin-shaped

characterized by lesions which are round with well-defined borders