pulmonal

Pulmonal is an adjective meaning belonging to or relating to the lungs. It derives from the Latin root pulmo, pulmon-, with the adjectival suffix -al. In English, the standard term is pulmonary; pulmonal is uncommon and largely limited to historical, Latinized, or non-English usage.

In German-language medical terminology and in some other languages, pulmonal is a common form for lung-related terms. It appears in compounds such as Pulmonalarterie (the pulmonary artery) and pulmonale Erkrankungen (lung diseases). When translating into English, these terms are typically rendered as pulmonary artery and pulmonary diseases.

In English medical writing, pulmonary is used for both anatomical terms and the field of medicine related to the lungs (pulmonology). The term pulmonal may be encountered in older sources or in multilingual dictionaries, but it is not standard in modern English.

Etymology and usage notes: pulmonal comes from the Latin pulmo, meaning lung, combined with -al to form an adjective. The English-preferring term pulmonary is widely used in anatomy, physiology, and clinical contexts, while pulmonal remains more common in non-English texts or historical contexts.

See also: pulmonary, pulmonology, lungs, Latin roots: pulmo.