Is this a nuance ?

What are the differences below,

1) gall, bile ( medicine ).

2) duct, tract ( medicine ).

3) marrow, medulla ( medicine ).

4) nich, oratory , galillee ( place of praying ).

Is there a nuance ? I was mixing them the early day in my speaking. Nobody noticed the difference

Navigator--

In these examples there are differences of meaning rather than shades of meaning (which would be nuances).

Gall is secreted in the gall bladder. Bile is secreted in the liver.

Metaphorically, when you talk about someone having a lot of gall, you mean someone who is not embarassed to breat social conventions for his own convenience. People with a lot of gall march to the front of lines and interrupt private conversations and complain about situations they caused.

Bile is associated with nastiness. Someone venting in a very nasty way is said to be spewing (vomiting) bile.

A duct is a connection between a gland and the place where the gland secretion works. Some glands are classified as "ductless glands". For example, there is a bile duct between the liver and the small intestine.

"Tract"? With a medical meaning? I have no idea.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Medulla", but marrow is the inner part of bones where white blood cells are formed.

Perhaps someone who is more of a churchgoer than I am could tackle your final category.

Hi Noddy, I should've noticed the difference between gall and bile, my mistake .

I found out that medulla and marrow maybe have the same definition, I guess.

I'll stand here, waiting for a churchgoer.


Thanks Noddy

Tract comes from the Latin tractatus "something drawn" and has a variety of meanings in different contexts (e.g. it's a synonym for treatise, as in "religious tract"). In medical terms it means a whole area or system of the body (e.g. "intestinal tract" which is a whole series of organs), as opposed to duct which is a single tube.

I'm not a churchgoer, but a niche (from Latin nidus, nest) is simply a recess in a wall in which to place some object. In a church that would naturally be some holy object such as the statue of a saint, but in a secular context it can be purely decorative; if you have a niche in your sitting room wall you could put a fruit bowl or a vase of flowers in it.

Oratory comes from the Latin "place of prayer" and its basic meaning is simply "chapel", often in the sense of "private chapel". However there is a Catholic religious order founded by St Philip Neri in the late 16th century, the Congregation of the Fathers of the Oratory, whose churches are called oratories. For this reason, these days there are some very big churches known as oratories (e.g. the Brompton Oratory in London).

A galilee is a porch or chapel at the entrance to a church. The name comes from the province of Galilee where Jesus and his disciples came from. I don't know why a chapel in this position should have been called a "galilee chapel" - perhaps someone who knows more about mediaeval church design can tell us?

Thanks syntinen, I found the same thing about galilee, but what you wrote explained everything.