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apophysis

/əˈpɑfɪsɪs/noun

apophysis is a noun meaning “A natural outgrowth, swelling or enlargement, usually of an organism; a protuberance on a bone” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled A-P-O-P-H-Y-S-I-S, and it appears about once in every 46 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of apophysis is apophyses.

What does apophysis mean?

noun

  1. 1

    A natural outgrowth, swelling or enlargement, usually of an organism; a protuberance on a bone.

  2. 2

    The external part of a cone scale.

  3. 3

    A branch of a dike or vein.

    Minor palingenetic magmas probably were generated at this time and intruded the mantling rocks in the form of small sills and apophyses; …

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce apophysis?

  • UK /əˈpɒfɪsɪs/
  • US /əˈpɑfɪsɪs/

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-apophysis.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of apophysis

  • apophyses plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is apophysis?

Apophysis appears about once in every 46 million words in written English, the 209,386th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Apophysis in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense outgrowth:

LanguageWords
Frenchapophyse
GermanFortsatz, Knochenfortsatz
Portugueseapófise
Spanishapófisis

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does apophysis come from?

From Ancient Greek ἀπόφυσις (apóphusis, “offshoot”), from ἀπό (apó) + φύω (phúō, “to bring forth”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH- (“to exist, to grow”). Equivalent to apo- + -physis.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).