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:
That gives the disease a high potential for an epidemic spread or even a global pandemic, but health officials have cautioned we have a long way to go to get to that point.
From Salon ● Oct. 5, 2026
But Russian officials stressed that postmortem tests had not detected the disease.
From Barron's ● Oct. 5, 2026
The institute took part in a bilateral training exercise with China earlier this year against the potential outbreak of an infectious disease.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2026
He added: "But of course people's thought with any outbreak of infectious disease at all runs to... lockdowns and Covid and that is just not what's going to happen here."
From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2026
Many still died from the disease, even though the atom bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima nine years before.
From "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes" by Eleanor Coerr
Russian authorities are investigating the death of a woman who worked at a Siberian institute for infectious diseases and have placed her contacts under close medical observation as they try to determine how she died.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2026
"There are longer droughts, more extreme heatwaves, while new pests and diseases are spreading," Braj told AFP.
From Barron's ● Oct. 4, 2026
By revealing this previously unknown link between leucine, protein quality control, and mitochondrial metabolism, the researchers have identified potential new targets for diseases in which cellular energy production is disrupted, including cancer and metabolic disorders.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 3, 2026
If voters approve the measure, $7.5 billion in bonds would fund California scientific and medical research into diseases such as cancer, Parkinson’s and ALS.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
Throughout history, leprosy has been one of the most misunderstood, feared, and reviled diseases in the world.
From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly
Researchers collected tissue from both diseased and non-diseased areas of the heart.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 11, 2026
He removed the tumour and part of the diseased jawbone, but the electrochemotherapy was administered to target any remaining cancerous cells.
From BBC ● Aug. 21, 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
He wondered if any of the men had cut themselves with a scalpel while performing a dissection of a diseased monkey.
From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston
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.
