morpho-, morph-, -morphous, -morphically, -morphia, -morphosis, -morphously, -morphy, -morphic, -morphism

An irrational and obsessive dread of being deformed, or the illusion that one is deformed: Jackie had a very good figure and wanted to become a model, but, since she had dysmorphophobia, she was totally anxious and terrified that the little flaw on her hand would end her future career before it even started!

Concerning people who have anxieties about their faces, their breasts, or hips, etc., as well as of body or limbs being wrinkled, misshaped, too large, or too small, or of having unpleasant odors coming from body sweat or from one's breath, etc.: Dysmorphophobic individuals tend to believe that others will comment adversely about their appearance, and so such victims try to avoid the company of possible critics, either real or imaginary.

Some dysmorphophic persons may be unable to look others in the eyes and try to hide that part of their physical structure of which they are most self-conscious by growing their hair or wearing a hat to conceal imagined baldness or oddly shaped ears, by wearing dark glasses to hide the shapes of their eyes, or avoiding swimming so others will not see their figures.

There are also other dysmorphophic individuals who will not even look in mirrors because their own reflections upset them considerably, and they want to wash zealously to make sure that they are very clean and smell acceptable to others, although they are already very clean.

Defective vision, with distortion of the shape of objects perceived.

Malformation or badly-shaped body parts or structures.

The study of the relationship between the ecological relations of an individual and its morphology.

1. An individual having a lean, slightly muscular body shape in which tissues derived from the embryonic ectoderm predominate.
2. A person with a thin non-muscular body.
3. Someone who belongs to a physiological type that has long lean limbs.
4. A constitutional body type or build (biotype or somatotype) in which tissues originating from the ectoderm predominate; from a morphological standpoint, the limbs predominate over the trunk.

Usually ectomorphs have lean bodies with slight or minimal muscle development. Examples of ectomorphs would be marathon runners, swimmers, basketball players, and fashion models.

Generally speaking people with ectomorphic bodies have a hard time gaining weight and difficulty building muscle mass.

Hydrochloride salt that is used as an emetic.

One of a pair of compounds having a mirror image relationship.

A form which is related to another as an object is related to its image in a mirror; a mirror image.

The condition or property of being enantiomorphous.

1. An individual having a body build characterized by relative prominence of the abdomen and other soft body parts developed from the embryonic endodermal layer.
2. A heavy person with a soft and rounded body.
3. An individual having a body build in which tissues derived from the endoderm predominate; there is relative preponderance of soft roundness throughout the body, with large digestive viscera and accumulations of fat, and with large trunk and thighs and tapering extremities, as contrasted with ectomorph and mesomorph.
4. A mineral enclosed within another mineral, such as rutile or tourmaline in quartz.

A reference to or characteristic of an endomorph or an individual having a body shape characterized by a relative prominence of the abdomen and other soft body parts

1. A change within an intrusive igneous rock caused by the assimilation of portions of the surrounding rock.
2. A homomorphism that maps a mathematical system into itself.