comedo (KOM-i-doh) - n., (med.) a clogged hair follicle or pore.
Can be closed over with skin, in which case it's a whitehead, or open, in which case oils from the skin darken the plug to be a blackhead. Plural is formally comedones, but comedos is also seen. Adapted in the 1860s from Medical Latin, from Latin comedÅ, glutton, from the supposed resemblance of the wormlike shape of a squeezed blackhead to a worm eating the flesh (lovely image, innit?), from comedere, to eat up, from com-, used as an intensifying prefix + edere, to eat.
And that's it for six-letter words -- back next week with the usual mix.
---L.
Can be closed over with skin, in which case it's a whitehead, or open, in which case oils from the skin darken the plug to be a blackhead. Plural is formally comedones, but comedos is also seen. Adapted in the 1860s from Medical Latin, from Latin comedÅ, glutton, from the supposed resemblance of the wormlike shape of a squeezed blackhead to a worm eating the flesh (lovely image, innit?), from comedere, to eat up, from com-, used as an intensifying prefix + edere, to eat.
And that's it for six-letter words -- back next week with the usual mix.
---L.