How to Pronounce Down Syndrome

Say it like this: DOWN SIN-drohm. The first word rhymes with 'town,' and the second word sounds like 'SIN' (rhymes with 'pin') followed by 'drohm' (rhymes with 'home'). The stress falls on the first syllable of the second word: SIN-drohm.

Break it into two parts: 'Down' (one syllable) and 'syn-drome' (two syllables). When you say it all together, it's DOWN / SYN-drome, with three syllables total.

Many people stress the wrong syllable and say 'down SIN-drome' or 'DOWN sin-DROME,' but the correct stress is on the first part of the second word: DOWN SIN-drohm. Listen carefully to where the emphasis falls—it's on SIN, not on the last part.

A 'syndrome' is a group of signs or features that happen together and are recognized as a condition. The word comes from Greek roots meaning 'to run together'—so it's describing things that go together as a package.

Yes, it's often abbreviated as 'DS' in medical writing. You can also see 'Trisomy 21' used as another name for the same condition, since it involves three copies of chromosome 21 instead of the usual two.

The condition is named after John Langdon Down, the doctor who first described it in the 1860s. It's not describing something that is 'down' or low—it's simply a person's name attached to the medical term.

You might say: 'She works with children who have Down syndrome' or 'Down syndrome is characterized by a distinctive set of physical features.' The term is used as a noun to name the specific condition.

Yes! Other medical terms use 'syndrome' too, like 'Turner syndrome' and 'Marfan syndrome.' Any time you see the word 'syndrome' at the end of a medical term, it means a group of features that occur together.