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Why is the "r" doubled in "arrhythmia" relative to "rhythmia"?

I'm guessing it's because English resists hyphenation of prefixes and suffixes ("a-rhythmia"), while direct prefixation by "a" would imply the wrong pronunciation: "arhythmia" looks like it should be pronounced "ah-rhythmia". However, "arrhythmia" also looks like it should be pronounced "ah-rhythmia", so that doesn't explain things...

I can't think of other cases that double the initial consonant when preceded with "a": the antonym of "tonia" is not "attonia" but "atonia", for example. The antonym of "regular" is "irregular", but the prefix is, I think, considered to be "ir", not "i". Maybe that simply means that the antonym prefix of "arrhythmia" is "ar", not "a", even though the word is pronounced "'A'-rhythmia", not "arr-rhythmia"?

Luke Hutchison
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    Probably because, as a medical term, the original Greek spelling with a geminate (doubled) consonant has been maintained. There is also diarrhoea, enterorrhagia, metrorrhagia, etc. – Mick Jul 28 '20 at 01:39
  • Yes, thanks -- this is a dup. – Luke Hutchison Jul 28 '20 at 04:45

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