MedLexic: an EN-FR dictionary for biomedical language professionals

One of the highlights at METM24 for English and French language medical translators was Jorge Esteban Casas’ introduction to MedLexic (“Dictionnaire anglais-français de médecine et des sciences connexes”). This online tool, published in early 2024 on the Cosnautas platform, offers a comprehensive EN-FR glossary of medical terminology with over 90,000 entries.

Cosnautas has long been a trusted resource in the medical writing and translation community. Its name may be familiar to METM attendees, as Cosnautas has sponsored MET conferences for many years, along with many off-METM activities.

Jorge, an experienced biomedical translator and interpreter, guided us through MedLexic’s features and demonstrated its practical applications for solving terminology challenges. He explained that most other biomedical dictionaries have been designed exclusively for health professionals and not language professionals working between French and English, and many are often no more than a list of translations with no additional context to help users grasp the nuances of meaning.

MedLexic is modelled on the well-known Libro Rojo (“Dictionary of Doubts and Difficulties in English Medical Translation” by Fernando A. Navarro), a Cosnautas cornerstone reference for Spanish-English medical linguists. MedLexic could be thought of as its French counterpart, a Livre Rouge – offering the same user-friendly interface and functionality. The search engine provides detailed entries enriched with cultural and linguistic nuances. There are also regular updates and opportunities for user contributions. Jorge described it as a “one-stop shop” for medical terminology, aggregating content from sources like medical dictionaries, glossaries, journals and official nomenclatures such as ICD-11 and INN.

A standout feature of MedLexic is its ability to flag potential translation pitfalls, such as polysemy, false friends, calques (loan translations), register mismatches and regional variations. Jorge shared examples to illustrate how the tool can help users avoid common missteps. For instance, it highlights distinctions between similar terms – like the misuse of dysfonction in French as a direct calque of its English counterpart, which MedLexic identifies as incorrect. Or the French word pathologie, often incorrectly used to refer to “disease”.

Beyond basic definitions, MedLexic offers a range of supplementary information:

• synonyms and collocations
• contextual explanations
• abbreviation clarifications
• regional and register variations
• cross-references and links to related terms
• warnings about obsolete or incorrect terms
• observations on nuanced usage

Jorge’s engaging presentation left me inspired, and I took time after METM24 to explore the Cosnautas and MedLexic platform. As a linguaphile myself, I found it quite fun to peruse. Various entries have fuller explanations beyond just the word or term, with examples of practical uses or etymology. The “Surprise Me” feature, which presents random lexicographic entries, allows users to discover terms and expand their vocabulary in an engaging way.

Jorge highlighted the importance of protecting linguistic integrity in an era increasingly dominated by artificial intelligence and machine translation. While these technologies have transformed communication, he warned that they often perpetuate a vicious cycle of errors and diminished quality. Tools such as MedLexic will undoubtedly make use of this technology in the future, but we can rest assured that it will also serve as a safeguard in preserving linguistic accuracy and nuance.

Cosnautas offers MedLexic free for one week and then requires a subscription. It also offers 12 other online tools for various language pairs including English, Spanish, French, German and Portuguese, nine of which are free upon registration.

If you work in this language pair, MedLexic is a standout resource, offering far more than typical terminology tools in French-English biomedical sciences. It can be a valuable, user-friendly addition to our translation toolkits – and definitely worth exploring!

This METM24 presentation was chronicled by Janet Klain Ratiu.

Featured photo courtesy of MET.