Liberal Dictionary English Dictionary
noun
- a disordered or incorrectly functioning organ, part, structure, or system of the body resulting from the effect of genetic or developmental errors, infection, poisons, nutritional deficiency or imbalance, toxicity, or unfavorable environmental factors; illness; sickness; ailment.
- any abnormal condition in a plant that interferes with its vital physiological processes, caused by pathogenic microorganisms, parasites, unfavorable environmental, genetic, or nutritional factors, etc.
- any harmful, depraved, or morbid condition, as of the mind or society: His fascination with executions is a disease.
- decomposition of a material under special circumstances: tin disease.
verb (used with object), dis·eased, dis·eas·ing.
- to affect with disease; make ill.
noun
- any impairment of normal physiological function affecting all or part of an organism, esp a specific pathological change caused by infection, stress, etc, producing characteristic symptoms; illness or sickness in general
- a corresponding condition in plants
- any situation or condition likened to thisthe disease of materialism
early 14c., “discomfort, inconvenience,” from Old French desaise “lack, want; discomfort, distress; trouble, misfortune; disease, sickness,” from des- “without, away” (see dis-) + aise “ease” (see ease). Sense of “sickness, illness” in English first recorded late 14c.; the word still sometimes was used in its literal sense early 17c.
n.
- A pathological condition of a body part, an organ, or a system resulting from various causes, such as infection, genetic defect, or environmental stress, and characterized by an identifiable group of signs or symptoms.