teratology
/ˌtɛrəˈtɒlədʒi
/noun [mass noun]
1 Medicine & Biology The scientific study of congenital abnormalities and abnormal formations: he has made a long study of teratology [count noun]: figurative the teratologies of human corruption...
- Rejecting the notion that freaks were sports of nature, Saint - Hilaire argued that teratology (the medical study of congenital monstrosity) should link normal and abnormal development.
- Genomics is unlikely to be of use in teratology studies because of the rapid rate of change in the developing organism.
- It is also forging links with medically oriented areas of developmental biology such as teratology and endocrine disruption.
2Mythology relating to fantastic creatures and monsters.
Derivatives
teratological
- I'm already planning to have the students poison developing zebrafish embryos and observe the formation of teratological defects, so I think sending 'em off to stab baby flies would fit right in with the program.
- It was suggested, by the French surgeon Jean Riolan and the Italian naturalist Ulysses Aldrovandi, that the new teratological science claimed to understand monstrosity exclusively in terms of physical deformity.
- This was the process by which the extraordinary body ceased to be truly extraordinary - that is, outside the realm of the natural - the process by which the teratological was stripped of its wonder and made simply pathological.
teratologist
- Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hillaire was the first teratologist to classify conjoined twins, using Greek etymology to describe the twins in terms of their shared anatomy.
- The catalog provides a source of reference for teratologists wishing knowledge of the literature dealing with a particular teratogenic agents.
- It is interesting to note that modern teratologists retained ` monster’ as a scientific term, therefore using a word which, through centuries, had inspired many prejudices.