CCMA Medical Terminology: Word Parts, Abbreviations and the Do Not Use List

Medical terminology takes up five lines of NHA's CCMA test plan, and you need it to read almost every question on the exam. The test plan puts those five statements under Foundational Knowledge and Basic Science. This guide takes each one and pairs it with free references from the National Library of Medicine and the National Cancer Institute, read on November 6, 2026. The test plan wording comes from an Internet Archive copy of NHA's PDF captured on August 31, 2026, and NHA's update page listed no new CCMA exam on November 6, 2026, so these are the statements to study for a 2027 test date.

What the CCMA test plan lists under medical terminology

The wording is NHA's.

These are 5 of the 34 knowledge statements in a domain with 15 scored questions, and the plan gives no count for terminology on its own. The vocabulary also runs through other statements: k36 lists "anatomical structures, locations, and positions," and k50 gives "apnea, hyperventilation, dyspnea" as examples of abnormal breathing patterns without defining them.

How medical words are built: beginning, middle and ending (k11)

MedlinePlus's Understanding Medical Words tutorial, from the National Library of Medicine, teaches one method. A long medical word can have:

• A beginning (prefix). It "can be about size, shape, color, direction, and amount"
• A middle (root). It "is often a part of the body"
• An ending (suffix). It can be about the same things as the beginning, "or it can be about a test or it can describe a problem"

The tutorial adds that not every medical word has a beginning or an ending, and that the same piece can sit in different places, like cardi in cardiologist and myocardial. Its own worked examples show the method:

Once you know the parts, terms you have never seen become readable, and that matters on an exam where every explanation uses this vocabulary: all 675 planned CCMA questions come with an explanation for every answer.

Roots for the body parts a medical assistant works with

Roots from the tutorial and from MedlinePlus's word parts list:

Beginnings and endings that change the meaning

The tutorial's definitions, with a few additions from the word parts list (marked A):

The word parts list also gives the color beginnings: erythr- (red), leuk- (white), cyano- (blue), melan- (black) and xanth- (yellow).

Wrong answer choices are often built from parts that differ by a few letters, so learn these as sets:

• -ectomy, -otomy, -ostomy: removal, a cut, an opening
• hyper- and hypo-: above and below normal
• tachy- and brady-: fast and slow
• inter- and intra-: between and within
• -gram and -graphy: the picture and the process of making it

Plural forms of medical words

Statement k11 names plurals, and the MedlinePlus pages above don't cover them. Learn the plural endings from your program's textbook or NHA's study guide, since this guide lists only what its sources state.

Lay terms and medical terms (k12)

Statement k12 is about moving between the patient's words and the chart's. The tutorial opens with why that matters: a family member says "heart attack" for a heart that stopped beating, while to the doctor a heart attack "means there is damage to the heart muscle" and a heart that stops is a cardiac arrest. The same words can mean different things to the two people using them.

Pairs taken from the tutorial:

Practice in both directions. In the first, you read a term in a provider's note and explain it to a patient in plain words. In the second, you hear a patient's description and recognize the term the provider will chart.

Abbreviations, acronyms and symbols (k9)

The tutorial calls abbreviations "shorthand for longer words" and notes that some are acronyms, "words made of letters from several words." Some come from Latin: b.i.d. is from "bis in die," twice a day. MedlinePlus's abbreviations list has these, among others:

One of them explains itself in the tutorial: electrocardiogram is often written EKG so that it isn't mistaken for EEG, the brain test, which "could look like ECG if the doctor wrote it in a hurry." That is the whole problem with abbreviations in one example, and it is why the next list exists.

The Joint Commission's Do Not Use list (k10)

The Joint Commission's standards FAQ couldn't be opened on November 6, 2026. As Passy read it on October 28, 2026, when the page showed a last update of April 21, 2026, it said accredited organizations must follow a list of prohibited abbreviations that at a minimum includes:

• U and u
• IU
• Q.D., QD, q.d. and qd
• Q.O.D., QOD, q.o.d. and qod
• A trailing zero (X.0 mg)
• A missing leading zero (.X mg)
• MS, MSO4 and MgSO4

On that reading, the list applies to "all orders, preprinted forms, and medication-related documentation," handwritten or electronic. A trailing zero is allowed only where it shows the precision of a reported value, such as a lab result or a catheter size, never in a medication order. Note which timing abbreviations are on it: the daily and every-other-day forms are, while BID, TID and QID from the table above are not among the items listed. The guide to the other 66 CCMA questions has a practice question on the list.

Abbreviations and the Do Not Use list are recall items, the kind that suit short daily review, and 58 flashcards are planned for the Foundational Knowledge and Basic Science domain.

Positional and directional terms (k13)

The National Cancer Institute's SEER training module defines the directional terms:

It also defines three planes. The coronal (frontal) plane divides the body into anterior and posterior portions, the sagittal (lateral) plane into right and left sides, and the axial (transverse) plane into upper and lower parts.

These terms combine. The anterolateral thigh, the infant injection site in CDC's guidance quoted in the Clinical Patient Care guide, is the front and outer part of the thigh: anterior plus lateral. Position prefixes work the same way inside drug routes. FDA defines sublingual as "beneath the tongue" (sub, under, and lingu, tongue), intramuscular as "within a muscle" (intra, within) and transdermal as "through the dermal layer of the skin" (trans, across, and derm, skin). The CCMA pharmacology review has the full route table.

Patient positions for examinations are a separate list. They belong to statement k61, positioning and draping, in General Patient Care, and this guide doesn't cover them.

Three CCMA medical terminology practice questions by Passy

These are original questions in the exam's style. They aren't NHA items.

1. A provider's note says a patient has bradycardia. Using word parts, what does the term mean?

• A. A fast heartbeat
• B. A slow heartbeat
• C. Inflammation of the heart
• D. An enlarged heart

Keyed answer: B. Brady- means slow, so bradycardia is a slow heartbeat. Option A would begin with tachy-, option C would end in -itis (carditis), and option D would end in -megaly.

2. Which term means removal of the stomach?

• A. Gastritis
• B. Gastrostomy
• C. Gastrectomy
• D. Gastroscopy

Keyed answer: C. Gastr is stomach and -ectomy is removal. The other endings change the meaning: -itis is inflammation, -stomy is creating an opening, and -scopy is viewing with an instrument.

3. Which statement uses a directional term correctly?

• A. The wrist is proximal to the elbow
• B. The wrist is distal to the elbow
• C. The wrist is medial to the elbow
• D. The wrist is superior to the elbow

Keyed answer: B. Distal means away from or farthest from the trunk, and the wrist is farther from the trunk than the elbow. Proximal is the reverse, medial refers to the midline, and superior means toward the head.

How to learn CCMA terminology fast

The CCMA study plan guide puts medical terminology in week 1, because every later topic uses it. Passy's suggestions:

1. Learn parts, not words. About 20 roots, 15 beginnings and 15 endings from the tables above let you read hundreds of terms
2. Take the tutorial's quizzes. The MedlinePlus tutorial has four short quizzes on roots, beginnings and endings
3. Break down every unfamiliar term you meet in practice questions, in the stem and in the wrong options, then check it against the lists
4. Review abbreviations and the Do Not Use list daily for a few minutes instead of in one long session

When an explanation still doesn't make sense, a second wording helps more than a second reading, and AI Rescue in planned CCMA prep offers simpler terms when an answer doesn't click.

Your next step with CCMA medical terminology

Take the 20 free CCMA practice questions and underline every term you had to guess. Break each one into parts with the tables above, then put terminology into your first week in the free CCMA study planner.