pathologist
Americannoun
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pathologists
plural
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a person who studies or works in pathology.
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a medical doctor who specializes in diagnosing diseases.
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Also called forensic pathologist. a medical doctor whose specialty is determining why someone died by examining their body.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Explanation
A student who is fascinated with the causes of disease and death might decide to go to medical school and become a pathologist. A medical doctor who performs autopsies to learn how patients died is a pathologist. Other pathologists trace illness back to their root causes, or diagnose diseases such as cancer. When a doctor decides to to become a pathologist, her field is called "pathology." The Greek root of both words is pathologikos, "treating of disease," which combines pathos, "suffering," with logia, "study, or the study of."
Vocabulary lists containing pathologist
The Book of Unknown Americans
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Vocabulary Review, Unit 3
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path (disorder; disease)
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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:
A pathologist from Tabriz was on her way to the Mediterranean resort town of Antalya for a week’s vacation.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 27, 2026
The American physician and pathologist George Whipple had shown that liver helped dogs recover from anemia caused by blood loss.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 25, 2026
During the sentencing hearing, Judge William Mousley KC said the pathologist had said that "no emergency medical treatment would have permitted access to the bleeding vein".
From BBC ● Jun. 4, 2026
A court pathologist found that Nowak would have almost certainly died of his injuries at the scene, even if paramedics had immediately intervened.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 3, 2026
Becky wants to be a pathologist and I want to be an aero-nautical engineer.
From "The Freedom Writers Diary" by The Freedom Writers
The government said it recognised the shortage of pathologists, but there was "no quick fix".
From BBC ● Aug. 24, 2026
The cases were submitted by coroners, forensic pathologists, and police forces between March 2019 and August 2024.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 15, 2026
Everlab’s platform ingests and organizes documents and data from doctors, specialists and pathologists, compiling patient records that it augments with real-time data from users’ existing wearable devices.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 16, 2026
There are currently just 52 consultant pathologists across the UK, according to the RCP.
From BBC ● May 29, 2026
The unsolved Ramsey case had inspired me to read up on the famous forensic pathologists Michael Baden and Henry Lee.
From "Confessions of a Murder Suspect" by James Patterson
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.
