peri- +
(Greek: around, about, near, enclosing, surrounding; more often used as a prefix)
peritonsillar
Around a tonsil or the tonsils.
peritracheal
1. Surrounding the tracheae.
2. Situated around the trachea.
peritrich
1. Any of various protozoans, such as the vorticella, having a wide oral opening surrounded by cilia.
2. Any ciliate protozoan of the subclass Peritrichia.
peritricha
A division of ciliated Infusoria having a circle of cilia around the oral disk and sometimes another around the body. It includes the vorticellas.
peritrichous
1. Relating to cilia or other appendicular organs projecting from the periphery of a cell.
2. Having flagella uniformly distributed over a cell; used especially with reference to bacteria.
peritropal
1. Rotatory; circuitous.
2. Having the axis of the seed perpendicular to the axis of the pericarp to which it is attached.
periuterine
1. Surrounding the uterus.
2. Around the uterus.
perivascular
Situated around or near a vessel or the tissues surrounding a blood vessel.
perivisceral
1. Near or around a viscus or the viscera.
2. Surrounding the viscera (internal organs of the body, specifically those within the chest (as the heart or lungs) or the abdomen (as the liver, pancreas, or intestines).
periwig, periwigged
A wig or
peruke [a wig, especially one worn by men in the 17th and 18th century].
It should be noticed that this peri- prefix is not related to the Greek peri- elements listed in this section. It is discussed here in order to clarify its origin and to clear up any confusion that may exist about its connection to the Greek prefix form.
For more than a century (from about 1660 to 1780) decorative heads of false hair were almost universally worn by fashionable men and women in Europe. In English, such headdresses were called perukes or periwigs. Both words are derived from Italian perruca, which originally meant "bushy head of hair" and later "wig".
Perruca was borrowed into French as perruque, which developed into two forms in English, peruke and periwig, which are synonymous. Periwig was shortened to wig, which is the form now in common use. The meaning of false hair, wig is first recorded in 1606, from the original use of false perruke (1565-1573).
—Webster's II New Riverside University Dictionary; Boston: The Riverside Publishing Company, a Houghton Mifflin Company, 1984.
perixenitis
An inflammatory reaction to a foreign body implanted in an organ or tissue of the body.
photoperiodism
1. A property of living organisms wherein biochemical, physiological, and behavioral changes occur in response to systematic variations in light and darkness, as with the seasons or day and night.
2. Any of various behavioral and physiological changes in an organism in response to the amount of daylight to which the organism is exposed; for example, the relative length of day and night on a seasonal or daily basis.
pleuropericardial
A reference to the pleura (serous membranes covering the lungs) and pericardium (double membranous sac which envelops and protects the heart).
pleuroperitoneum
The pleural and peritoneal membranes, or the membrane lining the body cavity and covering the surface of the inclosed viscera; the peritoneum; used especially in the case of those animals in which the body cavity is not divided.
pneumopericarditis
Pericarditis with the formation of gas in the pericardial cavity.
Related "around, round, surrounding" units:
ambi-;
ampho-;
circ-;
circum-;
cyclo-, -cycle;
gyro-.