malady
Americannoun
-
any disorder or disease of the body, especially one that is chronic or deepseated.
- Synonyms:
- indisposition, ailment, complaint, affliction, sickness, illness
-
any undesirable or disordered condition.
social maladies; a malady of the spirit.
noun
-
any disease or illness
-
any unhealthy, morbid, or desperate condition
a malady of the spirit
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of malady
1200–50; Middle English maladie < Old French, equivalent to malade sick (< Late Latin male habitus literally, ill-conditioned; see mal-, habit 1) + -ie -y 3
Explanation
A malady is an illness, like a malady that keeps you home, sick in bed for days, or something that causes you to have trouble or to suffer, like jet lag — a malady that affects travelers. Malady, pronounced "MAL-uh-dee," comes from the Latin words male, meaning "bad or ill" and habitus for "have, hold." When you have a malady, it is like something bad is holding you, such as an illness — the common cold: a malady of winter. Some bad habits cause maladies, such as never having any money — the malady of people who spend freely, not thinking of the future.
Vocabulary lists containing malady
Take the Bad with the Good: Bene and Mal
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The Tragedy of Macbeth
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The Kite Runner
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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.
Some believed that the latest epidemic was of a "mystical malady", a common belief in some remote areas of the DRC.
From Barron's • May 24, 2026
Anxiety paralysis is real, and people who procrastinate often are not lazy, but instead suffer from this all-too-common malady.
From MarketWatch • May 18, 2026
The word “nostalgia” first emerged to describe what doctors back then considered a malady, thinking it unwise to long for the past.
From Los Angeles Times • May 15, 2026
By treating actual adults—the chat participants weren’t teenagers—with kid gloves, they contribute to the cultural malady of infantilization.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 16, 2025
But now their art and knowledge were baffled; for there were many sick of a malady that would not be healed; and they called it the Black Shadow, for it came from the Nazgûl.
From "The Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkien
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.
