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60 free Medical Terminology trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
51 free medical terminology trivia questions with answers. This medical terminology quiz is a vocabulary workout built from the Greek and Latin pieces that medicine is assembled from. It covers the suffixes that name procedures and problems (-itis, -ectomy, -ostomy, -plasty, -rrhaphy, -centesis, -megaly, -penia), the prefixes that set the dial (hyper-, hypo-, brady-, tachy-, dys-, peri-, endo-), the roots for organs and tissues (hepat-, nephr-, cholecyst-, myel-, blephar-, onych-), the colours and quantities (cyan-, erythr-, oligo-, poly-), the anatomical direction words (proximal, distal, medial, contralateral, the sagittal plane), the Latin behind prescription shorthand (stat, PRN, NPO, BID, PO, gtt), and the everyday clinical words that get misused (acute, idiopathic, iatrogenic, nosocomial, benign, prognosis, palliative). About a third of the questions are ones anyone who watches hospital dramas can get; the middle third suits a nursing, pre-med or medical-coding student; the last third will test people who use these words for a living. Multiple choice, instant scoring, and a one-line explanation that adds an example or an origin after each answer. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia's medical-roots tables and related reference pages, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
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Q 01The suffix -itis, as in tonsillitis and appendicitis, means what?
Inflammation
Inflammation and infection are not the same thing: an inflamed joint in arthritis usually has no germ in it at all.
Q 02A mastectomy, appendectomy or tonsillectomy all involve what?
Surgical removal
The suffix -ectomy comes from the Greek for cutting out; the -tomy family (mastoidotomy, laparotomy) means cutting into without removing.
Q 03A colostomy or tracheostomy involves surgically creating what?
An opening
The word is built from the Greek stoma, mouth, and the ostomy is the artificial mouth the surgeon makes; the -otomy in tracheotomy is just the cut.
Q 04Rhinoplasty and arthroplasty share the suffix -plasty, meaning what?
Surgical repair or formation
The Greek plassein means to mould, the same root as plastic and plaster.
Q 05Myalgia is pain in which tissue?
Muscle
The my(o)- root gives us myocardium and myoblast; -algia is pain, and its cousin -dynia (as in vulvodynia) means the same.
Q 06Anemia, septicemia and leukemia all end in -emia. What does that suffix refer to?
A blood condition
The a- at the start of anemia is the negative prefix, so the word literally means 'no blood'.
Q 07Sarcoma, lipoma and teratoma share the suffix -oma, meaning what?
A tumour, mass or fluid pocket
By convention benign lumps take -oma alone (a lipoma is fat) while malignant ones add carcin- or sarc-; melanoma, a serious skin cancer, is the famous exception.
Q 08Splenomegaly and cardiomegaly describe an organ that is what?
Enlarged
The same mega- root does double duty in the metric system, where it means a million.
Q 09A colonoscopy, endoscopy or arthroscopy is an examination performed how?
With a viewing instrument inside
The -scopy family comes from skopein, to look; the picture or trace produced by an examination gets -gram, and the process of making it -graphy.
Q 10Diarrhea and rhinorrhea share a suffix meaning what?
Flow or discharge
The related -rrhagia (as in menorrhagia and hemorrhage) means the flow has become an excessive bleed.
Q 11Dyspnea, apnea and tachypnea all describe some aspect of what?
Breathing
The Greek pnoia is breath; sleep apnea literally means 'no breath', which is exactly what happens for seconds at a time.
Q 12Leukopenia and thrombocytopenia end in -penia. What does that suffix indicate?
A deficiency
The Greek penia is poverty; the opposite, an excess of cells, takes -cytosis, as in leukocytosis.
Q 13Amniocentesis and thoracentesis share the suffix -centesis, which describes what procedure?
Puncturing to draw off fluid
The Greek kentesis is a pricking; a spinal tap is a lumbar puncture rather than a lumbar centesis only because English got there first.
Q 21Which prefix means 'below normal', as in hypotension and hypothermia?
Hypo-
Its opposite hyper- means extreme or beyond normal, and mixing the two up on a chart is a classic error, which is why some hospitals write them out in full.
Q 22The prefix dys-, as in dysentery and dyslexia, means what?
Bad, difficult or abnormal
The prefix for 'without' is a- or an-, as in analgesic, literally 'without pain'.
Q 23The pericardium surrounds the heart. What does the prefix peri- mean?
Around
Endo- is inside (endocrinology), epi- is on or upon (epicardium), and per- is through, so peroxide is oxygen pushed through.
Q 14What does the surgical suffix -rrhaphy, as in herniorrhaphy, mean?
Suturing or stitching
The Greek rhaphe is a seam; the surgical suffix for fixing an organ in position is -pexy, and for crushing a stone it is -tripsy.
Q 15Lithotripsy, a treatment for kidney stones, literally means what?
Stone crushing
The lith- root is Greek for stone (as in monolith), and modern lithotripsy does the crushing with focused shock waves from outside the body.
Q 16Arthrodesis is a procedure that does what to a joint?
Fuses or binds it
The suffix -desis means binding; it is the opposite philosophy to arthroplasty, which rebuilds the joint to keep it moving.
Q 17Osteomalacia is a condition in which bone becomes what?
Softened
In children the same vitamin D shortage is called rickets; osteoporosis, by contrast, is bone that has become porous rather than soft.
Q 18Hemiplegia is paralysis affecting how much of the body?
One half
Hemi- is one half; para- gives paraplegia for the legs and quadri- or tetra- gives quadriplegia for all four limbs. Weakness short of paralysis is -paresis.
Q 19Dysphagia and dysphasia sound alike but mean different things. Dysphagia is difficulty with what?
Swallowing
The -phagia root is eating (as in the sarcophagus, the flesh-eating stone coffin); -phasia is speech, and hospital staff often say the two words very carefully.
Q 20Bradycardia and tachycardia describe a heart that is beating how?
Slowly and fast, respectively
Brady- is slow and tachy- is fast, which is why a tachometer measures how fast an engine is turning.
Q 24Oliguria and polyuria are opposites describing urine output. What does oligo- mean?
Few or little
Poly- is many, so polyuria is passing a lot of urine, a classic early sign of diabetes.
Q 25Hepatology, hepatitis and hepatocyte all concern which organ?
The liver
The kidney has two roots: Greek nephr- (nephrology) and Latin ren- (renal), and medicine uses both freely.
Q 26A cholecystectomy removes which organ?
The gallbladder
Chol(e)- is bile and cyst- is a bladder or sac, so the gallbladder is literally the bile-bladder; cyst- on its own usually means the urinary bladder, as in cystitis.
Q 27The root myel(o)-, as in myeloma and myelin, refers to which two structures?
Bone marrow and the spinal cord
It is easily confused with my(o)-, muscle: a myeloma is a marrow cancer, a myoma is a muscle tumour.
Q 28Blepharoplasty is cosmetic surgery on which part of the body?
The eyelids
The eye itself gets ophthalm- (Greek) or ocul- (Latin), tears get dacry- or lacrim-, and the cornea gets kerat-.
Q 29Onychophagy is the medical name for what habit?
Nail biting
Onych- is nail and -phagy is eating; the hair-pulling disorder is trichotillomania, from trich-, hair.
Q 30Which colour does the root cyan(o)- denote, as in cyanosis, the tinge of oxygen-starved lips?
Blue
Erythr- is red (erythrocyte, a red blood cell), leuk- is white (leukocyte), melan- is black (melanin) and chlor- is green (chlorophyll).