disease
Americannoun
-
diseases
plural
-
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
-
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.
-
any harmful, depraved, or morbid condition, as of the mind or society.
His fascination with executions is a disease.
-
decomposition of a material under special circumstances.
tin disease.
verb (used with object)
noun
-
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
-
a corresponding condition in plants
-
any situation or condition likened to this
the disease of materialism
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of disease
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English disese, from Anglo-French dese(a)se, disaise; dis- 1 + ease
Explanation
A disease is a health condition that has a specific set of symptoms and traits — such as malaria or heart disease. Disease is not always about the human body being sick. Plants and animals are often the victims of disease. People also use the word disease in a more figurative sense to illustrate just how bad or damaging a negative influence can be — like the disease of greed among capitalists or the disease of plagiarism among college students.
Vocabulary lists containing disease
Ecology - Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems - Introductory
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Ecology - Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems - Middle School and High School
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Workshop 5, Part 1
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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.
See Examples For:
Another mosquito-borne disease of increasing concern in California is dengue.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2026
The study notes that 6.7 million people in the United States currently have Alzheimer's disease.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 16, 2026
Increased monitoring and more advanced disease tracking can also amplify the sense that something new is afoot, even if it was always there.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2026
Indole metabolites have been connected to a wide range of diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease, neurodegenerative disorders, and cancer.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 15, 2026
If the disease is treated quickly, there are no long-term complications.
From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly
But growing evidence suggests that when these dormant viruses become active again, they may play a role in autoimmune diseases and other long-lasting health conditions.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 16, 2026
Combining protection against the three diseases has been considered a miracle of modern medicine.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 15, 2026
AI can be especially adept at flagging potential rare and hard-to-diagnose diseases, which may otherwise go undetected for years because doctors don’t often see them.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026
The discovery could reshape scientists' understanding of brain aging and may eventually create new possibilities for treating neurological diseases.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 14, 2026
“My mom’s a nurse. You think she doesn’t know how you can pick up diseases and stuff from touching sick people? She tells me all kinds of stories.”
From "Firegirl" by Tony Abbott
Different tissues have distinct methylation patterns, and those patterns can shift when cells become diseased or cancerous.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 11, 2026
Wacky animal sidekicks once felt vibrant in a holistic world of artifice; here, a goggle-eyed rooster just looks diseased.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 9, 2026
One promising possibility would be to intercept Tau containing extracellular vesicles after they leave diseased neurons but before they reach healthy ones.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 30, 2026
On April 24, 29 people—and the body of the diseased passenger—disembarked.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 7, 2026
Her heart is the heart of a dying turtle: reptilian, dark-red, diseased.
From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood
They provide for your wants, hearken to your complaints, nurture you in sickness, with a diseasing fondness, and so render you incapable.
From Charlemont; Or, the Pride of the Village. a Tale of Kentucky by William Gilmore Simms
In either case we have diabetes, the sugar irritating and diseasing the kidneys as it passes.”
From Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why What Medical Writers Say by Martha Meir Allen
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.
