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.
See Examples For:
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
You are also suffering from a very modern malady: decision paralysis.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 17, 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
Equally typical is a tendency to equate the risk from some obscure and exotic malady with the chances of suffering from heart and circulatory disease, from which about 12,000 Americans die each week.
From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos
Nearly a week after being rescued near Big Bear Lake, Jackie — half of a celebrity bald eagle couple — remains in critical condition as veterinarians continue to puzzle over the cause of her maladies.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2026
That would likely change if more people knew about the many different maladies associated with sun deprivation, including diabetes, dementia, depression and a range of autoimmune conditions.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 16, 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
Research shows that such stress can cause an increase in physical, psychological and emotional illness, along with other maladies, up to and including death.
From Salon ● Nov. 1, 2025
If undetected, it can lie dormant in the human body for years before erupting in a positive fiesta of maladies.
From "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson
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.
