Word.ws English Dictionary

listhesis

listhesis noun: a forward (anterior) displacement (slippage) of a vertebra over a lower segment.

Noun

listhesis (plural listheses)

  1. A forward (anterior) displacement (slippage) of a vertebra over a lower segment.
    • Type 1 facetal malalignment was when the facet of atlas was dislocated anterior to the facet of axis on lateral imaging and simulates lumbosacral listhesis.2015 July 28, Atul Goel, “Craniovertebral Junction Instability: A Review of Facts about Facets”, in Asian Spine Journal, volume 9, →DOI
  2. Any such displacement, anterior or otherwise.

Forms of listhesis

plurallistheses

Origin of listhesis

From reanalysis of spondylolisthesis as spondylo- + listhesis. The second element would be more accurately written olisthesis; it is from Ancient Greek ὀλισθάνω (olisthánō, “to slip, to slide”). Compare olistostrome. The word first appears in a 1912 medical terminology reference.

Words formed from listhesis

Questions about listhesis

What does listhesis mean?
Listhesis means a forward (anterior) displacement (slippage) of a vertebra over a lower segment.
What part of speech is listhesis?
Listhesis is a noun.
What is the plural of listhesis?
The plural of listhesis is listheses.

Words near listhesis in the dictionary

  1. listest
  2. listeth
  3. listful
  4. listfuls
  5. listheses
  6. listhesis
  7. listhetic
  8. listicle
  9. listicles
  10. listing
  11. Listing number

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: listhesis (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “listhesis.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/listhesis. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.