noun
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Dysentery can be transmitted by contact with water or food that has been contaminated by human waste. Public health and sanitation procedures in developed countries, however, have largely eliminated this means of transmission.
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Etymology
Origin of dysentery
First recorded in 1350–1400; from Medieval Latin dysenteria, from Greek, from dysénter(a) “bad bowels” ( see dys-, enteron) + -ia -ia; replacing Middle English dissenterie, from Old French
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How does dysentery compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
Dysentery is a nasty sounding word for a nasty condition: an intestinal infection that results in diarrhea. There are few things as unpleasant as dysentery, an infectious condition, kind of like the flu, that includes severe diarrhea. Dysentery is common in countries and places with poor health conditions and sewage problems. If the drinking water is filthy, that's a great way to spread dysentery. This word sounds kind of dirty, and that's a good hint to its meaning: the horrible illness of dysentery spreads in dirty, unsafe living conditions.
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.
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“It contributes to ill health, cholera, dysentery, typhoid, water-related diseases, and it contributes to conflicts over water.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 26, 2025
You and/or your ancestors didn’t die of dysentery.
From Slate ● Nov. 21, 2024
Amin Ahmed Ali fed her tiny son serum through a syringe - she has six-month-old twins slowly recovering from weeks of dysentery.
From BBC ● Apr. 12, 2024
For instance, Pliny the Elder, the ancient Roman author and philosopher, developed 27 different medical remedies using onions, ranging from curing bad vision and insomnia, to healing dysentery, mouth sores and toothaches.
From Salon ● Mar. 11, 2024
No one understood that microbes in body waste contaminated drinking water and caused dysentery and typhoid fever.
From "Ambushed!" by Gail Jarrow
"They've got tuberculosis, Salmonella, all the dysenteries," says Rodger Farr, a psychiatrist who ministers to the homeless of Los Angeles.
From Time Magazine Archive
The moon causes palsy, cholic, dropsy, imposthumes, dysenteries, and all diseases arising from obstructed circulation.
From Thaumaturgia by An Oxonian
Of these, 110,673, or 68 per cent., were of the zymotic class,—fevers, dysenteries, scurvy, etc., which are generally supposed to be due to exposure and privation, and other causes which are subject to human control.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 60, October, 1862 by Various
Putrid Water should always be purified by boiling it together with charcoal or charred sticks, as low fevers and dysenteries too often are the consequences of drinking it.
From The Art of Travel Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries by Sir Francis Galton
The only remedial influence that was experienced, was the growth of dysenteries and other intestine diseases, which, produced by hunger and becoming epidemic, kindly swept off thousands who would otherwise have died of protracted famine.
From Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. 9 by Various
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.
