The combining form morb- is most closely related to which concept?

• A. Disease
• B. Heart
• C. Skin
• D. Bone

Answer: (A)

The combining form morb- is tied to disease. It comes from the Latin morbus, meaning illness or sickness, so terms built with morb- convey a diseased or pathological idea rather than a specific body part. For example, morbid describes something related to disease, and morbidity refers to the state of being ill or the rate of disease in a population. In contrast, roots like cardi- (heart), derm- (skin), or oste- (bone) point to those particular organs, not disease in general. So morb- best represents disease.