Dictionary

cocci The plural of coccus.

coccus A bacterial cell that has the shape of a sphere. Coccus is part of the name of a number of bacteria, such as enterococcus, meningococcus, pneumococcus, staphylococcus, and streptococcus.

coccygeal vertebrae The three to five (the average number is four) rudimentary vertebrae that make up the coccyx.

coccyx The small tail-like bone at the bottom of the spine, very near the anus. It is the lowest part of the spinal column. Also known as tailbone.

cochlear implant A device that is surgically placed (implanted) within the inner ear to help a person with a certain form of deafness to hear. Cochlear implants rarely cure severe or profound deafness, but they can help some hearing-impaired people to distinguish the sounds of language clearly enough to participate in a verbal environment. For…

cockroach allergy A condition that manifests as an allergic reaction when one is exposed to cockroach allergens, tiny protein particles shed or excreted by cockroaches. Asthma can be triggered by exposure to these cockroach allergens. See also allergy.

code, genetic The instructions in a gene that tell the cell how to make a specific protein. A, T, G, and C are the “letters” of the DNA code and represent the chemicals adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine, respectively. These make up the nucleotide bases of DNA. Each gene’s code combines these four chemicals in…

code blue An emergency situation announced in a hospital or institution in which a patient is in cardiopulmonary arrest, requiring a team of providers (sometimes called a “code team”) to rush to the specific location and begin immediate resuscitative efforts.

code pink A hospital or institution alert to security that a baby is missing from the hospital nursery.

codon A set of any three adjacent bases in DNA or RNA. There are 64 different codons, of which 61 specify the incorporation of an amino acid into a polypeptide chain; the remaining 3 are stop codons, which signal the ends of polypeptides.

coenzyme A substance that enhances the action of an enzyme to mediate and speed a chemical reaction. A number of the water-soluble vitamins, such as vitamins B1, B2, and B6, serve as coenzymes. See also enzyme.

Cogan corneal dystrophy A disorder in which the cornea shows grayish fingerprint lines, geographic map-like lines, and dots (or microcysts). These lines and dots can be seen on examination with a slit-lamp, which focuses a high-intensity light beam through a slit while the examiner uses a magnifying scope to look at the front of the…