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Disease   /dɪzˈiz/   Listen
noun
Disease  n.  
1.
Lack of ease; uneasiness; trouble; vexation; disquiet. (Obs.) "So all that night they passed in great disease." "To shield thee from diseases of the world."
2.
An alteration in the state of the body or of some of its organs, interrupting or disturbing the performance of the vital functions, and causing or threatening pain and weakness; malady; affection; illness; sickness; disorder; applied figuratively to the mind, to the moral character and habits, to institutions, the state, etc. "Diseases desperate grown, By desperate appliances are relieved." "The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public counsels have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have every where perished."
Disease germ. See under Germ.
Synonyms: Distemper; ailing; ailment; malady; disorder; sickness; illness; complaint; indisposition; affection. Disease, Disorder, Distemper, Malady, Affection. Disease is the leading medical term. Disorder means much the same, with perhaps some slight reference to an irregularity of the system. Distemper is now used by physicians only of the diseases of animals. Malady is not a medical term, and is less used than formerly in literature. Affection has special reference to the part, organ, or function disturbed; as, his disease is an affection of the lungs. A disease is usually deep-seated and permanent, or at least prolonged; a disorder is often slight, partial, and temporary; malady has less of a technical sense than the other terms, and refers more especially to the suffering endured. In a figurative sense we speak of a disease mind, of disordered faculties, and of mental maladies.


verb
Disease  v. t.  (past & past part. diseased; pres. part. diseasing)  
1.
To deprive of ease; to disquiet; to trouble; to distress. (Obs.) "His double burden did him sore disease."
2.
To derange the vital functions of; to afflict with disease or sickness; to disorder; used almost exclusively in the participle diseased. "He was diseased in body and mind."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Disease" Quotes from Famous Books



... of a large family, but six of his sons had died of the plague, or rather of the treatment which the medicine-men had used in the disease, which was to sweat the victims in hot earthen ovens, and then plunge them into ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... necessarily noble, and that most modern kings, poor in quality, petty in spirit, conventional in outlook, controlled and limited, fall far short of kingship. Nevertheless, there IS nobility, there IS kingship, or this earth is a dustbin and mankind but a kind of skin-disease upon a planet. From that it is an easy step to this idea, the idea whose first expression had already so touched the imagination of Amanda, of a sort of diffused and voluntary kingship scattered throughout mankind. The aristocrats are not at the high table, the kings ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... [And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle] To take, in Shakespeare, signifies to seize or strike with a disease, to blast. So ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... times suffered most severely, and he was more than once reduced by fever to a state of extreme exhaustion; but up to this time the strength of his constitution enabled him to triumph over the attacks of disease, and the energy of his mind was so great, that the first days of convalescence found him again as ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... danger of extermination, and at length the people fled in hundreds. An English doctor and his assistant wished to help them by means of serum injections, but the Mohammedan clergy, out of hatred of the Europeans, made the people believe that it was the Christians who had let loose the disease over the country. Deluded and excited, the natives gathered together and made an attack on the British Consulate, but were repulsed. Then they went back to their huts ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin


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