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:
Hispanic older adults face a disproportionate burden of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.
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
The study notes that 6.7 million people in the United States currently have Alzheimer's disease.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 16, 2026
You have to ask, “what are we doing to the planet and does that mean we will encounter more diseases?” said Janet Foley, a disease ecologist at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2026
Dr. Masuku was looking for a disease to make the tsetses sick.
From "A Girl Named Disaster" by Nancy Farmer
Also conducted by UT Health San Antonio, it became a major, long-term observational study focused on chronic diseases, healthy aging and the process through which older adults develop disabilities.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 16, 2026
The same mosquito carries the diseases Zika and Chikungunya.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2026
There are fewer data points, including case records, tissue samples and images, for rare diseases than more common conditions.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026
More than a billion people around the world are living with obesity, a condition that raises the risk of diseases including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 15, 2026
But how lucky, when you think about it, that these diseases are at least species specific.
From "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson
Professor of Molecular & Integrative Physiology, graduate student researcher Jessica Maung, Ph.D., and a broader collaborative team to investigate what happens inside diseased fat tissue.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 26, 2026
In particular, they’re examining how bacteria from diseased gums, and the immune response they trigger, may contribute to conditions including heart disease, diabetes, cognitive decline, arthritis, respiratory disease and chronic liver disease.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 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
To prepare for transplant, I had two weeks of near-lethal doses of chemo to destroy my diseased bone marrow and suppress my immune system, creating space for donor cells to take hold.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 19, 2026
Instead, we began going to another site at the other end of the veld, where a chicken factory, Sunnyside, dumped loads of dead, diseased chickens, and rejected eggs.
From "Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography" by Mark Mathabane
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
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
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.
