Believed to be a certain way by popular opinion.

*Reputed* is used constantly today by reporters, and almost always to describe suspected criminals—“the reputed mobster,” “the reputed drug kingpin,” “the reputed gang leader,” etc. But the word shouldn't be left to journalists; your elderly aunt may, for instance, be reputed to have made a large fortune in oil, or to have had four husbands who all died mysteriously. *Reputed* is easy to confuse with *reputable,* and they used to mean the same thing—that is, “having a good reputation”—but it's become rare to hear *reputed* used with that meaning today.

Loss or lack of good reputation; disgrace.

A *reputation* can be easy to lose, and someone who is no longer respectable may eventually find he's become genuinely *disreputable*—the kind of person that almost no one wants to be seen with. Disrepute isn't only for individuals: A company may fall into disrepute as a result of news stories about its products' defects; drug scandals have brought entire sports into disrepute; and a scientific theory may fall into disrepute as a result of new discoveries.

To attribute.

Imputing something to someone (or something) usually means observing something invisible in that person (or thing). We may impute meaning to a play or novel, or to a casual remark by a friend, that was never intended. Many of us like to impute bad motives to others, while always regarding our own motives as pure. In tax law, imputed income is something that isn't actual money but might as well be—for example, the free use of a car lent to you by your employer.

Generally supposed; assumed to exist.

*Putative* is almost always used to express doubt or skepticism about a common belief. Thus, Tintagel Castle in Cornwall, a picturesque ruin, is the putative fortress of the medieval King Arthur. The residents of New York City are *putatively* chic, neurotic, rude, and dangerous. And cable TV is full of putative experts, who often turn out not to have much knowledge of the subjects they're talking about.

(1) A branch of biology dealing with the processes and activities by which living things, tissues, and cells function. (2) The life processes and activities of a living thing or any of its parts.

The Latin root *physio-* generally means “physical,” so human physiology deals with just about everything that keeps us alive and working, and other physiology specialties do the same for other animals and for plants. To do anything serious in the field of health, you've obviously got to know how the body's organs and cells function normally. Physiology used to be considered separately from anatomy, which focuses on the body's structures; however, it's now known that structure and function can't easily be separated in a scientific way, so “anatomy and physiology” are often spoken of in the same breath.

A set of methods or rules followed in a science or field.

The methodology employed in an experiment is essential to its success, and bad methodology has spoiled thousands of research projects. So whenever a piece of research is published in a scientific or medical journal, the researchers always carefully describe their methodology; otherwise, other scientists couldn't possibly judge the quality of what they've done.

The set of ideas and beliefs of a group or political party.

The root *ideo-,* as you might guess, means “idea.” Ideas and theories about human behavior can always be carried too far, since such behavior is very hard to pin down. So *ideological* thinkers—people who come up with large theories about how the world works and try to explain everything (and maybe even predict the future) according to those theories—are almost always disappointed, sooner or later, to find that it doesn't really work out. A person intensely devoted to a set of political ideas or theories can be called an *ideologue*—a translation of the French *idéologue*, a word actually coined by Napoleon as a label for those political thinkers full of ideas he had no use for.

The study of the heart and its action and diseases.

The root *card-* (closely related to *cord*—see CORD) shows up in many heart- related words. *Cardiologists* frequently find themselves studying *cardiograms*, the charts of heart activity, made by machines called *cardiographs*. Heart attacks, and deaths caused by them, have both declined as a result of better medical emergency procedures, cholesterol-lowering drugs, and a decline in smoking. But the factors likely to actually improve heart health, such as better diets and more *cardiovascular* exercise (exercise, such as running, that improves the heart and blood vessels), haven't made any progress at all. So we should all be prepared to perform *cardiopulmonary resuscitation* (an emergency procedure done on someone whose heart has stopped, to get the heart and lungs working again).