WO'N posted a pome of Rupert Brookes's in Wordplay and Fun (in response to a post by troutdog, about some creaturely plurals being singular), and it contains the word "squamous."

I got all confused because someone told me, just today, that "squamous" means "skin" (or having to do with skin - it was a medical context) - and now I just looked it up and it means "scales." Has the word undergone a metamorphosis I haven't heard about?

Medical context: when gathering cells for a Pap test, the physician collects them from the squamocolumnar junction, the point at which the cervix changes colour from pink to red. The suggestion that women have scales there makes me somewhat queasy and uneasy...!

Let us go in peace to love and serve the board.