haemorrhoids

British  

/ ˈhɛməˌrɔɪdz /

plural noun

1. Nontechnical name: piles.  pathol swollen and twisted veins in the region of the anus and lower rectum, often painful and bleeding

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Other Word Forms

• haemorrhoidal
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of haemorrhoids

C14: from Latin haemorrhoidae (plural), from Greek, from haimorrhoos discharging blood, from haimo- _haemo- + rhein to flow

Example Sentences

Fraudsters posing as the young student sent a message to her father, saying she had a case of haemorrhoids that she was embarrassed to talk about.

From BBC • Nov. 11, 2021

But while self-isolating, Omid began to suffer from minor bleeding which he put down to haemorrhoids.

From BBC • Jun. 17, 2020

His semi-sequel to Knocked Up presented modern middle age as an era of dwindling passions, parenting issues, financial burdens, haemorrhoids and mammograms.

From The Guardian • Jul. 17, 2017

On a shelf is a lurid, plastic, life-size model of a rectum afflicted by every imaginable malady – haemorrhoids, fistulae, ulcerative colitis, faecaliths.

From The Guardian • Mar. 31, 2013

In the latter position these dilated veins constitute what are known as haemorrhoids or piles, internal or external as their site lies within or outside the anal aperture.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 4 "Diameter" to "Dinarchus" by Various