Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Faeces |
FaecesNoun1. Solid excretory product evacuated from the bowels. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "faeces" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1891. (references) |
Etymology: Faeces \F[ae]"ces\, plural noun. [Latin expression faex, plural faeces, dregs.]. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Medicine | The undigested residue of food and other forms of waste matter and alimentary refuse discharged from the bowel during defaecation. Source: European Union. (references) |
Multilingual Slang | Breton (kaoc'h), Scots (skitters). (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Feces (also spelt faeces) is the excrement from the digestive tract expelled from the anus of animals by defecation. It consists of water, undigested food residues, digestive secretions, and bacteria. The reddish-brown color of human feces is derived from stercobilin, created by bacterial action on bilirubin and subsequent oxidation.The word feces comes from the Latin word faex which means "dregs".
Feces are also known as scat and scatology is the study of feces.
Feces are generally a taboo subject (see toilet humour). This is probably because of the need to keep feces well away from food, for health reasons.
Coprophilia is a sexual attraction to feces. Coprophagia is the extremely hazardous practice of eating feces.
Meconium (also spelled merconium) is a newborn baby's first feces, and is normally passed post-partum. There is a danger that aspiration (inhalation) of meconium can occur if it is passed during labor and delivery. Inhaled meconium can cause a partial or complete blockage of the newborn's airways, and the severity depends on the amount of meconium the baby aspirates. Meconium aspiration affects around 20 percent of all newborn babies worldwide.
Laboratory testing of feces
In the medical profession, feces are referred to as stools. This comes from the Anglo-Saxon word stol, which means "seat". The word stool was originally used to describe the seat one sat on to go to the bathroom. So, the expression was that they were "going to stool." By the end of the 16th century, the word stool was used to mean the same thing as feces.Feces will usually be required for microbiological testing, looking for an intestinal pathogen.
Biochemical tests done on feces include fecal elastase and fecal fat measurements, as well as tests for fecal occult blood.
It is recommended that the clinician correlates the symptoms and submit specimens according to laboratory guidelines to obtain results that are clinically significant. Formed stools often do not give satisfactory results and suggest little of actual pathologic conditions.
Three main types of microbiological tests are commonly done on feces:
Routine culture involves streaking the sample onto agar plates containing special additives, such as MacConkey's Agar, that will inhibit the growth of Gram positive organisms and will selectively allow enteric pathogens to grow, and incubating them for a period, and observing the bacterial colonies that have grown.
- Antibody-antigen type tests, that look for a specific virus (e.g. rotavirus).
- Microscopic examination for intestinal parasites and their ova (eggs).
- Routine culture.
Yellowing of feces can be caused by an infection known as giardia. Giardia are tiny parasitic organisms. If giardia infects the intestines it can cause severe yellow diarrhea. This is a dangerous communicable infection and must be reported.
Another cause of yellowing is a condition known as Gilbert's Syndrome. This condition is characterized by jaundice and hyperbilirubinemia. Hyperbilirubinemia occurs when too much bilirubin is present in the circulating blood.
Feces can be black if dried blood is present in it from a bleed. More active bleeding can lead feces to be red in color.
In children with certain illnesses, Feces can be blue or green. Babies also produce green feces when they are given food for the first time.
The main pathogens that are commonly looked for in feces include:
See also:
- Salmonella and Shigella
- Yersinia (this tends to be incubated at 30°C, which is cooler than usual.)
- Campylobacter (incubated at 42°C, in a special environment.)
- Aeromonas
- Candida (if the person is immunosupressed e.g. cancer treatment.)
- E. coli O157 (if blood is visible in the stool sample.)
- Intestinal parasite
External links and references
- Urobilinogen
- Liver biochemistry
- History of Shit by Dominique Laporte (ISBN 0262621606)
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Feces."
Synonyms: FaecesSynonyms: dejection (n), faecal matter (n), fecal matter (n), feces (n), ordure (n), stool (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Excretion | Noun: excretion, discharge, emanation; exhalation, exudation, extrusion, secretion, effusion, extravasation, ecchymosis; evacuation, dejection, faeces, excrement, stools, crap; bloody flux; cacation; coeliac-flux, coeliac-passion; dysentery; perspiration, sweat; subation, exudation; diaphoresis; sewage; eccrinology. |
Uncleanness | Spawn, offal, gurry; lientery; garbage, carrion; excreta; slough, peccant humor, pus, matter, suppuration, lienteria; faeces, feces, excrement, ordure, dung, crap, sewage, sewerage; muck; coprolite; guano, manure, compost. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Faeces |
| English words defined with "faeces": Excretin ♦ Fecifork ♦ Skatol, Stercobilin. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "faeces": digestible energy ♦ metabolisable energy, metabolizable energy ♦ pail closet. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Faeces" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. Dutch (faeces), Latin (dregs, feces, sediment). |
| "Faeces" is generally used as a noun (plural) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Faeces" is used about 266 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (plural) | 100% | 266 | 18,071 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
faeces | 6 |
faeces green | 4 |
animal faeces listeria | 3 |
dog eating faeces | 2 |
blood faeces in | 2 |
color faeces | 2 |
black faeces | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "faeces"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | fekale (excrements), feçe, jashtëqitje (defecation, dejection, excrement, excreta, ordure). (various references) | |
Arabic | براز (dejecta, excrement, motion, stool). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | утайка (crust, deposit, drains, dregs, feculence, grouts, offscourings, precipitate, precipitation, ragtag, residue, residuum, rinsings, sediment, sludge, warp), изпражнения (dejecta, dirt, evacuations, excrement, matter, ordure, rejectamenta, slops, soil, stools, waste). (various references) | |
Chinese | 粪 (MUCK). (various references) | |
Czech | fekálie. (various references) | |
Danish | faeces (dejecta, feces, stool), fæces (dung, faecal matter, feces), fæces, moeg (dung, faecal matter, feces), ekskrementer (dung, excrements, excreta, faecal matter, feces), animalsk goedning (dung, faecal matter, feces), affoering (stool). (various references) | |
Dutch | faeces (dejecta, dung, excrement, faecal matter, feces, human excrements, human excreta, human faeces, human feces, stool). (various references) | |
Finnish | ulosteet (excrement, stools). (various references) | |
French | selles, fèces (faecal matter). (various references) | |
German | Fäkalien (feces). (various references) | |
Greek | περιττώματα (droppings, excreta). (various references) | |
Hebrew | צוא" (dung, excrement, filth, ordure, stool, turd). (various references) | |
Hungarian | ürülék (defecation, dejecta, dirt, doo-doo, excrement, feces, turd, waste product), üledék (bottoms, deposit, deposition, dreg, dregs, dross, emptyings, precipitate, precipitation, residual, residue, sediment, settlings, silt, sludge). (various references) | |
Indonesian | tinja (dung, excretion), berak (excrement, excrete, movement). (various references) | |
Italian | feci (excrement, feces), escrementi (excrement, feces). (various references) | |
Manx | taarey (dung, dunging), keck (crap, droppings, dung, excrement, ordure), eoylley (excrement, fertilizer, manure). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | aecesfay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | fezes (dregs, excreta, lees). (various references) | |
Romanian | scârnã (dung, excrement), excremente (excrement, excrements, ordure). (various references) | |
Russian | фекалии (excrement), кал (excrement), осадок (aftertaste, crust, deposit, dregs, grounds, precipitate, precipitation, residue, residuum, sediment, settling, sludge), испражнение (defecation, evacuation, excrement, feces). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | izmet (excrement, feces, raff). (various references) | |
Spanish | materias fecales (dung, faecal matter, feces), heces fecales (dung, faecal matter, feces), heces (dregs, lees, sediment, slop, sweepings), excrementos (ordure, rejectamenta), excremento (dung, excrement, excreta). (various references) | |
Swedish | exkrementer (dejecta, excrements, feces), avföring (cancelling, defecation, evacuation, excretion, feces, movement, passage, removal, stool). (various references) | |
Thai | อุจจาระ (feces, ordure). (various references) | |
Turkish | tortu (crust, deposit, deposition, draff, dregs, fecula, feculence, foots, grounds, Lees, remainder, residual, residue, residuum, sediment, settlings, tailings), posa (draff, dreg, dregs, feculence, foots, Marc, residuum, sediment, settlings, tailings), pislik (contamination, crap, crud, dinginess, dirt, dirtiness, excrement, excreta, faecal matter, feculence, filth, filthiness, foulness, gook, griminess, impurity, jerk, mess, mire, muck, nastiness, offscourings, ordure, pollution, scum, scurvy, smear, smut, soil, sordidness, squalor, uncleanliness), kaka (dejection, evacuation, excrement, excreta, faecal matter, rejectamenta, stool), dışkı (dejection, evacuation, excrement, excreta, excretion, faecal matter, rejectamenta, rejection, stool, turd), bok (crap, dung, excrement, faecal matter, turd), atık (contaminant, contamination, faecal matter, fall out, fallout, refuse, rejectamenta, rejection, throw out, waste, waste product). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | кал (dung), осад (dregs, precipitate, residue, residuum, sediment, settling, sludge). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-c-e-e-f-s" | |
-1 letter: cafes, cease, faces, fease, feces. | |
-2 letters: aces, cafe, case, cees, ease, face, fees, safe. | |
-3 letters: ace, cee, efs, fas, fee, sac, sae, sea, sec, see. | |
-4 letters: ae, as, ef, es, fa. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-c-e-e-f-s" | |
+1 letter: defaces, effaces, enfaces, refaces. | |
+2 letters: casefied, casefies, defacers, effacers, faceless, faiences, feasance, fiancees, prefaces. | |
+3 letters: acetifies, affecters, beefcakes, briefcase, caffeines, ceasefire, defecates, defiances, ecofreaks, feasances, feedbacks, forefaces, fricassee, palefaces, perfectas, praefects, prefacers, resurface, typefaces, wheyfaces. | |
+4 letters: affectless, affluences, aftercares, afterdecks, briefcases, cafeterias, cavefishes, ceasefires, chafferers, cofeatures, defalcates, defeasance, efficacies, faceplates, facileness, fecundates, federacies, feminacies, feracities, fireplaces, flackeries, forcemeats, forecasted, forecaster, forecastle, franchisee, freelances, fricasseed, fricassees, friedcakes, interfaces, luciferase, parfleches, rechauffes, refinances, repacifies, resurfaced, resurfacer, resurfaces, shamefaced, sufferance, whitefaces. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage Frequency | 5. Expressions: Internet 6. Translations: Modern 7. Anagrams 8. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
