podium

The combining form –podium is used like a suffix meaning “footlike part.” It is very occasionally used in scientific terms, especially in botany.

The form –podium comes from Greek pódion, meaning “little foot.” The Latin cognate of pódion is pēs, “foot,” and is the source of several combining forms related to the lower extremities, including –ped, –pede, and pedi–. Discover more at our Words That Use articles for each of these three forms.

What are variants of –podium?

The form -podium is a variant of –pode. It also shares an origin with the combining forms pod–, podo–, –pod, –poda, and –podous. Want to know more? Read our Words That Use articles for all these forms.

One example of a scientific term that features the form –pode is monopodium, a technical term for the single trunk or stem some plants, such as orchids, have.

Mono- may look familiar to you; it means “one, single,” from Greek mónos. The form –podium means “footlike part.” Monopodium literally translates to “(organism with) one footlike part.”

What are some words that use the combining form –podium?

• filopodium
• lycopodium (using the equivalent form of –podium in Latin)
• parapodium
• pseudopodium
• stylopodium (using the equivalent form of –podium in Latin)
• sympodium (using the equivalent form of –podium in Greek)

What are some other forms that –podium may be commonly confused with?

• -pedia
• -penia
• -ploid

The combining form pseudo– means “false” or “pretend.” With this in mind, what is the part of a cell that is known as the pseudopodium?