myasthenia gravis

American  

noun

Pathology.

1. a disease of impaired transmission of motor nerve impulses, characterized by episodic muscle weakness and easy fatigability, especially of the face, tongue, neck, and respiratory muscles: caused by autoimmune destruction of acetylcholine receptors. MG

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myasthenia gravis British  

/ ˈɡrɑːvɪs /

noun

1. a chronic progressive disease in which the muscles, esp those of the head and face, become weak and easily fatigued

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Etymology

Origin of myasthenia gravis

1895–1900; < New Latin: serious muscle weakness

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

myasthenia gravis

The firm helped build, for example, a tool that screens for a rare neuromuscular disorder called myasthenia gravis.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026

Blackmore victim Paul Stevens, who was forced to retire from work due to an auto-immune disease called myasthenia gravis, invested his ill-health retirement benefit into the fund.

From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2022

In patients with the autoimmune disease myasthenia gravis, muscle cell receptors that induce contraction in response to acetylcholine are targeted by antibodies.

From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 2022

After a year and a half of tests and several brutal eye surgeries, he was given a diagnosis of myasthenia gravis, a rare autoimmune disease that interferes with the way nerves and muscles communicate.

From New York Times ● Jul. 3, 2017

Esophageal paralysis is not uncommon in myasthenia gravis.

From Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery by Chevalier Jackson