organic disease

American  

noun

Pathology.

1. a disease in which there is a structural alteration (opposed to functional disease).

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organic disease British  

noun

1. any disease in which there is a physical change in the structure of an organ or part Compare functional disease

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Etymology

Origin of organic disease

First recorded in 1835–45

Example Sentences

Policy makers are so convinced that children with attention deficits have an organic disease that they have all but called off the search for a comprehensive understanding of the condition.

From New York Times • Jan. 28, 2012

Yes — and the idea that you feel like you’re a different person is a symptom of the particular organic disease, which I discovered.

From Time • Oct. 18, 2011

Yet her psychiatrist did not know she had an organic disease.

From Time • Oct. 18, 2011

Even the warming presence of an angel who, Jocelin believes, comes to watch over him as he prays is explained away as the effect on his spine of some un speakable organic disease.

From Time Magazine Archive

"She has no organic disease," said I, "but she loved that young man very much, and the day will be a terrible one to her."

From Lost Man's Lane A Second Episode in the Life of Amelia Butterworth by Green, Anna Katharine