Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An abnormal duct or passage resulting from injury, disease, or a congenital disorder that connects an abscess, cavity, or hollow organ to the body surface or to another hollow organ.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A reed; a pipe; a wind-instrument of music.
- n. In the Roman Catholic Church, same as calamus, 4.
- n. In pathology, a narrow passage or duct, formed by disease or injury, leading from an abscess to a free surface, or furnishing an abnormal means of egress from some normal cavity, as in vesicovaginal fistula. A fistula may be cutaneous or deep-seated; incomplete, or blind, when it has but one opening; complete, when there are two. An incomplete fistula may be external or internal, according to the position of the opening.
- n. [capitalized] [NL.] In zoology, a genus of polyps.
- n. A tube or pipe which normally connects some internal part or organ of an animal with the surrounding air or water, as the trachea of an insect or the blow-hole of a whale.
Wiktionary
- n. medicine An abnormal connection or passageway between organs or vessels that normally do not connect.
- n. rare A tube, a pipe, or a hole.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A reed; a pipe.
- n. obsolete A pipe for convejing water.
- n. (Med.) A permanent abnormal opening into the soft parts with a constant discharge; a deep, narrow, chronic abscess; an abnormal opening between an internal cavity and another cavity or the surface
WordNet 3.0
- n. an abnormal passage leading from a suppurating cavity to the body surface
- n. a chronic inflammation of the withers of a horse
Etymologies
- From Latin fistula ("pipe, ulcer, catheter"), from findō ("cleave, divide, split"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Latin. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The risk for fistula is compounded among young women who are married and give birth in their teens - in Niger, half of all girls are married by age 15.”
“Doctors here specialize in fistula operation and women travel here from far and wide for a cure.”
Global Voices in English » DRC: Rape Epidemic Fuels Fistula Cases
“_ -- The word fistula is applied to any ulcerous lesion upon the external surface of the body which is connected by ducts, or passages, with some internal cavity.”
“The word "fistula" - Latin for reed or pipe - is generally used to describe an abnormal opening or sinus that can cause such atrocities as a rectum connected to the bladder or to the urethra or to the vagina.”
“She has what is called a fistula: now all her urine and feces leak in a long incontinent streak from her vagina.”
“There is also a devastating epidemic of women and girls whose vaginas and reproductive organs have been completely destroyed from being violated with guns, bottles and sticks, often resulting in a condition called fistula, a rupture that results in the uncontrollable leakage of urine and feces.”
“Many women have developed tears in the lining of their vaginas, called fistula, which cause incontinence of urine or feces.”
“PESCA: Coming up, a documentary about a condition in women called fistula and the stigma it creates and the women who fight against it.”
“As such, the nephrologists usually have a chance to prepare them for dialysis both mentally (dietary restrictions and such) and physically (surgical creation of a connection between an artery and a vein in an arm, called a fistula, into which needles can be inserted to allow the machine access to the blood stream.)”
“Typically, a fistula occurs when a physically immature teenage girl tries to give birth, and the baby gets stuck.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘fistula’.
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phrontistery - f
from phrontistery.info
fabaceous, fabiform, fabulist, faburden, face-cord, facetiae, facia, facinorous, factious, factitious, factitive, factive and 418 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11250 more...
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Thresholds
we are all just passing through.
(boundaries, portals and liminal spaces/times)cockcrow, interface, thin line, portal, postern, littoral, interstice, port, membrane, skin, crepuscule, dawn and 311 more...
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Ula Ula
Words ending in -ula
radula, spatula, peninsula, hula, blastula, scoopula, nebula, scapula, scopula, tarantula, uvula, tentacula and 1 more...
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Afflictions of the Realm
archaic diseases
dropsy, quinsy, tisick, measles, croup, gout, canker, teething, overlaying, mold-shot head, thrush, whooping-cough and 57 more...
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Medscape
Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary
Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionaryoedema, arthro-, chordoma, fistula, sclerosis, amyotrophic, etiology, anaphylaxis, histamine, polymorphism, postmortem, postpartum and 16 more...
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Fist
A list of words containing the string *fist*.
*fist*, fist, pacifist, fisted, fisticuffs, fistful, fistfight, fistula, ham-fisted, fisting, iron-fisted, tight-fisted and 29 more...
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Words I wish I didn't know
I'll be listing items from my personal collection, but feel free to add whatever you like--I'm sure it will be helpful to know which things I won't want to know.
every potential l..., ubi pus ibi evacua, suppuration, suppurative chola..., nonsuppurative ch..., warm antibody hem..., subarachnoid hemo..., amortization sche..., tire rotation, thunderclap headache, feeding tube, appraised value and 32 more...
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Out
Words that connote making an exit, places to exit, means to an exit.
exit, way out, exeunt, outfall, opening, débouché, outlet, egress, vent, porthole, loophole, port and 49 more...
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Ugliest Sounding Words
List words that sound ugly, regardless of meaning
kumquat, milk, meal, jizz, bubonic, fester, goulash, sasquatch, carbuncle, sieve, onomatopoeia, burlesque and 29 more...
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Worse Than They Sound
fistula, cryptosporidium, debride, donnybrook, decerebrate, pillory, flagellate, disembogue, minatory, micturate, coprolite, nosocomial and 160 more...
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kingofbash's Words
bash, poleaxed, salacious, libertine, charlatan, aplomb, fortuitous, finagle, apoplectic, debutante, carte blanche, aardvark and 472 more...
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aliko's Words
deli, turkey, bodrum, deniz, sunny, seks, tatil, hava, zeeman, captain, kapitein, kaptan and 256 more...
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jagosaurus's favorites
Words I like mostly because of the way they sound and feel.
ticonderoga, petulance, snark, estimable, chickahominy, feline, gezellig, gneiss, shit, willy-nilly, shelter, coda and 366 more...
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Disturbing Medical Words
Medical words of the disturbing kind.
meteorism, autoamputation, edema, deglove, gossypiboma, sillyhow, fistula, ague-cake
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Faintheart's Words
onomatopoeia, no, terrafactive, word, faint, heart, joy, quixotic, karla, half, amp, tardis and 181 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for fistula.

dailyword My Uncle Danny has this. Jun 20, 2012
yarb Citation on ascites. Sep 28, 2008
lesinge it just sounds dirty. Feb 3, 2007