Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 April 30
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April 30
[edit]Having to do with the knee
[edit]English has so many adjectives meaning having to do with a particular body part. Most of them end in -al; an exception is ocular. But we don't have one meaning having to do with the knee. Why?? Georgia guy (talk) 18:44, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Genual is in Wiktionary and some other online dictionaries, though it seems to be a fairly rare word. Deor (talk) 18:52, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Patellar also works, as in related to the patella or knee cap. The issue, anatomically speaking, is that the knee is actually two different joints; there's a patella-femur joint and a tibia-femur joint (or three if you count the tibia-fibula joint). We don't have many adjectives related to other joints, FWIW. I can't think of a common adjective for an elbow or a hip or an ankle, either. So if there were a common English adjective related to the knee, it would be weird. The common thing among joints seem to not have one. --Jayron32 18:57, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- The root "genu" is more often used in "genuflect", a fancy way of saying "knee bend". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:01, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Arteries in the knee region of the leg are known as genicular arteries. — Kpalion(talk) 20:28, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Medical terminology also uses the Greek "gonu" to form knee-related compound words (gonalgia, gonarthrosis...). Adam Bishop (talk) 11:12, 1 May 2018 (UTC)