Word of the Day: Rouleaux

At times, even the smallest entities in the body may arrange themselves to create patterns that are surprisingly ordered. For example, red blood cells, when examined with a microscope, may be found to be stacked up neatly, almost like a stack of coins. This is not random and has a specific name in medical science. This phenomenon is called rouleaux. This term is generally used to describe how cells tend to arrange themselves in certain situations. This is important despite the simplicity of the process.Rouleaux refers to a formation in which red blood cells stack together in rows, resembling a roll or a pile of coins.The term rouleaux has its origin in the French language, in which it is the plural form of the word rouleau, meaning “roll” or “cylinder.” It is derived from the word rouler, meaning “to roll.”When it was incorporated into the English language in medicine, it referred to the coin arrangement of red blood cells. It has since been used as a term in medicine to identify this arrangement.