Wiktionary

disease

See also: dis-ease

English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Middle English disese, from Anglo-Norman desese, disaise, from Old French desaise, from des- + aise. Displaced native Middle English adle, audle (“disease”) (from Old English ādl (“disease, sickness”), see adle), Middle English cothe, coathe (“disease”) (from Old English coþu (“disease”), see coath). By surface analysis, dis- +‎ ease.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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disease (countable and uncountable, plural diseases)

  1. (medicine) An abnormal condition of a human, animal or plant that causes discomfort or dysfunction; distinct from injury insofar as the latter is usually instantaneously acquired.
    The tomato plants had some kind of disease that left their leaves splotchy and fruit withered.
    • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii], page 272, column 2:
      […] diſeaſes deſperate growne,
      By deſperate appliance are releeued,
      Or not at all.
    • November 22, 1787, James Madison Jr., Federalist No. 10
      The instability, injustice, and confusion, introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have every where perished; […]
    • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter V, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
      Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. […] When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose.
    • 1922, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, →OL:
      […] the awfully hearty sort of Christmas cards that people do send to other people that they don't know at all well. You know. The kind that have mottoes […] And then, when you see [the senders], you probably find that they are the most melancholy old folk with malignant diseases.
    • 2012 March, William E. Carter, Merri Sue Carter, “The British Longitude Act Reconsidered”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 87:
      Conditions were horrendous aboard most British naval vessels at the time. Scurvy and other diseases ran rampant, killing more seamen each year than all other causes combined, including combat.
  2. (figuratively) Any abnormal or harmful condition, as of society, people's attitudes, way of living etc.
    • 1955, The Urantia Book, Paper 134:6.7:
      War is not man's great and terrible disease; war is a symptom, a result. The real disease is the virus of national sovereignty.
  3. Lack of ease; uneasiness; trouble; vexation; disquiet.

Synonyms

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Hyponyms

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Derived terms

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Terms derived from disease: eponyms
Terms derived from disease - toponyms
Terms derived from disease: others
terms derived from "disease" (unsorted)

Translations

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an abnormal condition of the body causing discomfort or dysfunction

Verb

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disease (third-person singular simple present diseases, present participle diseasing, simple past and past participle diseased)

  1. (obsolete) To cause unease; to annoy, irritate.
  2. To infect with a disease.

References

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Anagrams

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