Homonyms in medicine; a perspective – Historical Article
In linguistics, a homonym is, in the strict sense, one of a group of words that share spelling and pronunciation but may have different meanings. Thus homonyms are simultaneously homographs (words that share the same spelling, regardless of their pronunciation) and homophones (words that share the same pronunciation, regardless of their spelling).
One can find easily a name in medicine which be perceived as 2 different meanings. Table 1, list few examples, and Table 2, focus on few eponyms which can be misunderstood as related to countries.
Acronyms might be considered a major source for homonyms. Acronyms such as CHILD, CLOVE, KID, LEOPARD, NAME, and POEM might cause confusion to the patient as to the relation to the other meanings of these acronyms. CLOVE syndrome stands for (congenital lipomatous
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