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Glite Dictionary
🐖 Animal skin disease 🧬 Cell change in skin
parakeratosis

parakeratosis

9.9
A skin condition in which the outer skin cells keep their nuclei instead of losing them
  • noun
  • /ˌpærəˌkɛrəˈtoʊsɪs/
  • Specialized
translation icon : parakeratosis
  • Dermatologists often diagnose parakeratosis by examining the skin for retained nuclei in the outer layers.

Examples

  • In cases of parakeratosis, the skin cells do not undergo normal maturation and remain nucleated.

  • The diagnostic feature in this stage is the so-called Munro microabscesses, the infiltration of neutrophils into the area of parakeratosis.

    Academic text (2007)

  • The patient showed signs of parakeratosis, which indicated an abnormal skin condition needing treatment.

Surface Forms

parakeratosis singular
parakeratoses plural

Morphology

parakeratosis = keratosis (opaque) = para + kerat + osis

The structure is systematic in medical terminology, but the skin-condition meaning depends on specialized knowledge rather than everyday English.

Etymology

Parakeratosis breaks down the same way: para- meaning 'abnormal', kerat- meaning 'horn' or 'hard skin' as in keratin, and -osis meaning 'condition'. So parakeratosis describes an 'abnormal hard-skin condition' in which the outer skin cells do not finish becoming the hard outer layer and so keep their small centers, making the skin look scaly.