noun
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Dysentery can be transmitted by contact with water or food that has been contaminated by human waste. Public health and sanitation procedures in developed countries, however, have largely eliminated this means of transmission.
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Etymology
Origin of dysentery
First recorded in 1350–1400; from Medieval Latin dysenteria, from Greek, from dysénter(a) “bad bowels” ( see dys-, enteron) + -ia -ia; replacing Middle English dissenterie, from Old French
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How does dysentery compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
Dysentery is a nasty sounding word for a nasty condition: an intestinal infection that results in diarrhea. There are few things as unpleasant as dysentery, an infectious condition, kind of like the flu, that includes severe diarrhea. Dysentery is common in countries and places with poor health conditions and sewage problems. If the drinking water is filthy, that's a great way to spread dysentery. This word sounds kind of dirty, and that's a good hint to its meaning: the horrible illness of dysentery spreads in dirty, unsafe living conditions.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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“It contributes to ill health, cholera, dysentery, typhoid, water-related diseases, and it contributes to conflicts over water.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 26, 2025
You and/or your ancestors didn’t die of dysentery.
From Slate ● Nov. 21, 2024
"There is no drinking water," Rouzatullah says, warning there might be outbreaks of waterborne diseases such as typhoid and dysentery.
From BBC ● May 15, 2024
For instance, Pliny the Elder, the ancient Roman author and philosopher, developed 27 different medical remedies using onions, ranging from curing bad vision and insomnia, to healing dysentery, mouth sores and toothaches.
From Salon ● Mar. 11, 2024
But we’ve had just as many guys taken out with dysentery and influenza.
From "Moon Over Manifest" by Clare Vanderpool
"They've got tuberculosis, Salmonella, all the dysenteries," says Rodger Farr, a psychiatrist who ministers to the homeless of Los Angeles.
From Time Magazine Archive
The only remedial influence that was experienced, was the growth of dysenteries and other intestine diseases, which, produced by hunger and becoming epidemic, kindly swept off thousands who would otherwise have died of protracted famine.
From Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. 9 by Various
Putrid Water should always be purified by boiling it together with charcoal or charred sticks, as low fevers and dysenteries too often are the consequences of drinking it.
From The Art of Travel Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries by Sir Francis Galton
Fevers and dysenteries, snakes and musquitoes, the plantain and the palm, we had left behind.
From The Andes and the Amazon Across the Continent of South America by James Orton
The Leaves.—Their taste is roughish, bitter, pungent, and extremely unpleasant: they stand strongly recommended by Simon Pauli against dysenteries; but their forbidding taste has prevented its coming into practice.
From The Botanist's Companion, Volume II by William Salisbury
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
