dyspepsia
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of dyspepsia
1650–60; < Latin < Greek dyspepsía, equivalent to dys- dys- + péps ( is ) digestion + -ia -ia
Explanation
If you have chronic indigestion, heartburn, or nausea, you may be diagnosed with the digestive disorder dyspepsia. Dyspepsia can be caused by many things, including ulcers and medications. Dys- is the Greek prefix for bad, and peptos is Greek for digested. Together they make the word dyspeptos, which means hard to digest or literally, badly digested. The Greek word became the root for the adjective dyspeptic, which in turn was the basis for dyspepsia. Sometimes people may say you have dyspepsia when they mean you are chronically in a bad mood or so irritable that it seems like you suffer from chronic indigestion — although this usage is more common with dyspeptic.
Vocabulary lists containing dyspepsia
Florida's B.E.S.T. Roots: dys
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"The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" by Katherine Anne Porter
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Moon Over Manifest
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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.
Pep Secretary Karoline Leavitt, as always, adds to the dyspepsia.
From Salon ● Aug. 22, 2025
If dyspepsia were all there was to him there might not be much to the movie.
From New York Times ● Jul. 13, 2023
Construct an explanation of the effect of serotonin as a treatment of functional dyspepsia.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 2022
It is not hard to give yourself over—to quiet the dyspepsia of your curmudgeonly heart, if not the protests of your elderly eyes.
From The New Yorker ● Nov. 30, 2018
“No. It’s just indigestion. Of course, indigestion, also known as dyspepsia, is a term that describes a wide range of gastrointestinal maladies.”
From "The Smartest Kid in the Universe" by Chris Grabenstein
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.
