What is the difference between a thigh and an upper leg?

Answer

Hi Adrian,

In Dutch there can be quite a bit of confusion because most things from anatomy are translated from Latin.

Firstly, there is already confusion about the word ‘leg’ in Dutch: after all, you can do both
1) mean the bones or bones of the body
Or also
2) the lower limbs or legs

You wondered what the difference is between thigh(leg) and thigh.
Well, very simple: these are two words with the same meaning (synonyms)

Below you will find a description of femur (meaning 1) above!) from Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org), in which they start from Latin (femur=thighbone OR os femoris=bone/bone of the thigh)

“The thigh bone (femur) is the longest, largest and strongest bone in the human body. It forms the part of the leg that runs from the knee to the hip. The word femur is Latin for thigh, hip. In medical Latin it is the genitive of femur always femoris, but in classical Latin it was often called feminis, not to be confused with the Latin word for woman, femina. The average length of the thigh is over 43 centimeters.”

Why are these two words the same now?

By the ‘thigh’ one actually means the upper bone (meaning 1) on top) of our lower limbs or legs (meaning 2) on top).
They make it very difficult indeed by translating into Dutch and because the word has 2 meanings.

For the sake of completeness: as for the lower leg (lower part of our legs = meaning 2)) it is easier because the lower leg consists of 2 bones or bones (here again in meaning 1)) so there is no confusion!
The lower part of our legs consists of 2 bones: the tibia (in Latin ‘tibia’) and the fibula (in Latin ‘fibula’).

Hopefully this answer is clear to you!
Above all, remember that the tennis player only had pain in one place and that you now know where that was!

Kind regards,

Tim Vanmarcke