"medical treatment of children; the branch of medicine dealing with the study of childhood and diseases of children," 1884; from pediatric; see -ics.
Entries linking to pediatrics
pediatric adj.
"of or pertaining to the medical care or diseases of children," 1849, from Latinized form of Greek paid-, stem of pais "child" (see pedo-) + -iatric.
-ics
in the names of sciences or disciplines (acoustics, aerobics, economics, etc.), a 16c. revival of the classical custom of using the neuter plural of adjectives with Greek -ikos "pertaining to" (see -ic) to mean "matters relevant to" and also as the titles of treatises about them. Subject matters that acquired their English names before c. 1500, however, tend to be singular in form (arithmetic, logic, magic, music, rhetoric). The grammatical number of words in -ics (mathematics is/mathematics are) is a confused question.