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View synonyms for disease

disease

[ dih-zeez ]

noun

  1. a disordered or incorrectly functioning organ, part, structure, or system of the body resulting from the effect of genetic or developmental errors, infection, poisons, nutritional deficiency or imbalance, toxicity, or unfavorable environmental factors; illness; sickness; ailment.

    Synonyms: malady, disorder, infirmity, indisposition, distemper, derangement, complaint, morbidity

    Antonyms: health

  2. any abnormal condition in a plant that interferes with its vital physiological processes, caused by pathogenic microorganisms, parasites, unfavorable environmental, genetic, or nutritional factors, etc.
  3. any harmful, depraved, or morbid condition, as of the mind or society:

    His fascination with executions is a disease.

  4. decomposition of a material under special circumstances:

    tin disease.



verb (used with object)

, dis·eased, dis·eas·ing.
  1. to affect with disease; make ill.

    Antonyms: cure

disease

/ dɪˈziːz /

noun

  1. any impairment of normal physiological function affecting all or part of an organism, esp a specific pathological change caused by infection, stress, etc, producing characteristic symptoms; illness or sickness in general
  2. a corresponding condition in plants
  3. any situation or condition likened to this

    the disease of materialism

“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Other Words From

  • dis·eased·ly adverb
  • dis·eased·ness noun
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Word History and Origins

Origin of disease1

First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English disese, from Anglo-French dese(a)se, disaise; dis- 1 + ease
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Word History and Origins

Origin of disease1

C14: from Old French desaise; see dis- 1, ease
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Example Sentences

When the number drops too low it means an epidemic is likely out of control, since officials can no longer keep up with the demand for testing and see where new pockets of disease are spreading.

From Vox

To that end, his lab infected the brains of mice, chimpanzees, and monkeys with the virus that causes the disease.

It found vaccination levels for all diseases globally have dropped to the lowest in 25 years because of pandemic lockdowns and economic destabilization.

From Fortune

According to the commission’s calculations, only 80 or so couples in the US have both partners carry mutations for sickle-cell disease.

“It was thought for a long time that this is the only way in which an immune response remembers an infection, by these memory lymphocytes,” said Mihai Netea, a clinician and infectious disease specialist at Radboud University in the Netherlands.

Without it, they say, the disease would surely kill her within two years.

He beat his illness twice, wrote about his battles with the disease, and continued broadcasting even as his health was failing.

It was a reminder that, as Beyoncé once sang, “Perfection is the disease of a nation,” and her family is hardly flawless.

World peace, religious tolerance, and an end to global poverty, hunger, and disease.

Despite the obvious ongoing problems with disease and access to basics, the future of Africa is bright.

In disease, the amount of solids depends mainly upon the activity of metabolism and the ability of the kidneys to excrete.

Men's lives are as thoroughly blended with each other as the air they breathe: evil spreads as necessarily as disease.

As a rule, however, persistent glycosuria is diagnostic of diabetes mellitus, of which disease it is the essential symptom.

Here they are seldom abundant, but their constant presence is the most reliable urinary sign of the disease.

The darkness, or rather the general misapprehension, which prevails on this subject, is a frightful source of disease and misery.

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