ptosis
/ˈtoʊ.sɪs/noun
ptosis is a noun meaning “The prolapse of a bodily organ, especially drooping of the eyelid or the breasts” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled P-T-O-S-I-S and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 14 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of ptosis is ptoses.
What does ptosis mean?
noun
- 1
The prolapse of a bodily organ, especially drooping of the eyelid or the breasts.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce ptosis?
- UK /ˈtəʊ.sɪs/
- US /ˈtoʊ.sɪs/
Ptosis has 2 syllables (counted from the pronunciation).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-ptosis.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of ptosis
- ptoses plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is ptosis?
Ptosis appears about once in every 14 million words in written English, the 111,684th 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).
Ptosis in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense the prolapse of a bodily organ:
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 ptosis come from?
From Ancient Greek πτῶσις (ptôsis, “falling, fall”), from πίπτω (píptō, “to fall down”) + -σις (-sis, nominal suffix). First used in 1710.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).