Abstract

The terms disc and meniscus are found in Terminologia Anatomica. However, both terms are used sy-nonymously to refer to the intra-articular cartilage present in the temporomandibular joint (TMJ). For this reason, this study aims to expose the greek roots of the terms disc and meniscus to evaluate the coherence between their lexical and morphological relationships. Both terms were consulted in the International Federative Program of Anatomical Terminology and in Greek, Spanish and, English dictionaries. The search reported that the term “disc” derives from the Latin discus, and this in turn from the Greek δίσκος [dískos], which means “cylindrical body whose base is very large compa-red to its height”. For its part, “meniscus” comes from the Greek mēnískos μηνίσκος [mḗn μήν gr. μείς ‘meis’, ‘crescent moon’ +-iskos Gr. Diminutive suffix ‘small’] which means “small crescent moon” and, is defined as “cartilage with a semilunar shape and decreasing thickness from the periphery to the center; It is part of the knee joint. Therefore, the anatomical definition of articular disc and meniscus is determined by its morphology according to the etymology of the word. In the TMJ, an articular disc is found between the articular bones, depending on their morphology.