lipoma
Meaning of lipoma: A lipoma is a soft, slow-growing lump of fat cells that sits just beneath the skin and is not cancerous.
Definition of lipoma
A lipoma is a benign growth made up of mature fat cells, typically found just beneath the skin. It usually feels soft, round or oval, and moveable under the fingers, and it tends to grow slowly over months or years without causing pain in most cases.
Lipomas can develop almost anywhere on the body where fat tissue is present, and a person may have a single lipoma or several at once. They are diagnosed based on their characteristic appearance and feel on examination, and imaging or a biopsy may be used when the diagnosis is uncertain or the growth has unusual features.
Because a lipoma is benign, it does not spread to other parts of the body, which distinguishes it from a liposarcoma, a rare cancerous tumor of fat tissue that can resemble a lipoma in its early appearance.
How lipoma is built
- lip/o Combining form · Greek fat, lipid
- -oma Suffix · Greek tumour, mass, swelling
A medical term is read from its ending backwards: the suffix first, then the prefix, then the root. See all 223 word parts.
Used in a sentence
Examination revealed a soft, mobile lipoma on the patient's upper back.
Good to know
A lipoma is distinguished from a liposarcoma primarily by its benign behavior on examination and, when needed, by tissue sampling, since a rapidly growing or unusually firm fatty mass warrants further evaluation.
Word origin
Where “lipoma” comes from
Formed from lip-, from Greek lipos, meaning "fat," and -oma, a Greek suffix meaning "tumor" or "mass."