malady
Americannoun
-
maladies
plural
-
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.
See Examples For:
What humanity is struggling with nowadays is the malady in their soul.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
“Maddie’s Secret” isn’t much of a secret, not if you remember those made-for-TV malady movies that turned subjects like bulimia into hypnotic melodramas.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 26, 2026
For most of the finale’s 46 minutes, she and Ava argue over why Deborah, someone who’s never said die, would so easily surrender to a treatable malady.
From Salon ● May 29, 2026
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
Her bout with the malady was short, however.
From "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" by Elizabeth George Speare
Most of Aviv’s characters wander through life uneasily, plagued by misdiagnosed, undiagnosable or undertreated maladies.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026
One condition alone can be difficult to address, but intertwined maladies further complicate matters.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 6, 2026
Many things happen, never for too long; all kinds of maladies, medications and melodramas are involved.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 6, 2026
"They treat a whole host of maladies," said Thomas Patton, a professor at New York state's Union College who has studied Myanmar's mystics.
From Barron's ● Dec. 21, 2025
Once my modifications are complete, the Whisperer will become a wondrous healing device, boys—a device capable of curing maladies of the mind.
From "The Mysterious Benedict Society" by Trenton Lee Stewart
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.
