meralgia

1 9.9

A pain in the outer thigh from a pinched nerve

noun
/mɜːˈræl.dʒə/

Specialized

: meralgia

After sitting for several hours, he experienced a sharp meralgia in his right leg.

Examples

Physical therapy is often recommended to alleviate the symptoms of meralgia.
She suffers from meralgia in her left thigh.
The doctor diagnosed her with meralgia following complaints of persistent thigh pain.
The doctor diagnosed him with meralgia after the examination.
The condition known as meralgia involves pain in the outer thigh due to nerve compression.
After sitting for hours, she felt a sharp discomfort indicating meralgia in her thigh.
He was diagnosed with meralgia after complaining about tingling sensations in his thigh.

Synonyms

neuralgia

vsmeralgia

Specialized

3 9.3

A sudden strong pain along a nerve, often in the face

is localized in the thigh and often comes from nerve compression and is milder

How Painful

agony

139 3.9

pain

∞ 1.0

ache

86 1.3

meralgia

Specialized

1 9.9

discomfort

118 3.2

Surface Forms

meralgia singular

meralgias plural

Morphology

meralgia = mer (opaque) = mer + algia

The term is formed from Greek combining forms that are not recognisable standalone English words, so learners cannot reliably infer the meaning from the parts.

Etymology

Meralgia comes from Greek parts meros 'thigh' and algia 'pain'. So it literally means 'thigh pain', and you can spot the same algia in words like myalgia 'muscle pain' and neuralgia 'nerve pain', which explains why meralgia refers to pain in the thigh.