Word of the Day: Comminute

An interesting word, this; one I had never given much thought to until my accident. It has nothing to do with commuting or communism, much as the superficial resemblance might hint.

Rather, its roots lie in the Latin com-, a prefix implying change of state towards something else, and minus which means 'less' (hence, minute meaning 'small'). Comminution is the process of making things smaller by pounding (pulverisation, from Latin pulvis = 'powder'); to comminute is to break something up into fragments.

A 'comminuted fracture' is one in which a bone has broken up into more than two pieces. The best case scenario for this is, of course, three pieces. Haha.