As a -mata of Fact

I feel that my vocabulary is decent if not strong. So, when I learned about the -mata pluralization form today, I was surprised that I had never really heard about it before. I guess you learn something new each day.

Now, most people have heard of the word stigmata as it refers to the wounds inflicted upon Jesus during his crucifixion. But, did you know that stigmata is also the plural of stigma (note that stigmas is also an acceptable plural form). Beyond that, did you know that there is a large class of -ma words that can be pluralized with -mata?

I thought it was pretty cool. It's not that often that you run into a whole new set of pluralizations.

dogma - dogmata
diploma - diplomata
miasma - miasmata
adenoma - adenomata
enigma - enigmata
sarcoma - sarcomata

There are quite a few others, as well. I'm going to have to start putting these to use the next time I have an itch for lexical ostentation.