tuberculosis - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

To international scientific vocabulary from New Latin tūberculōsis, from Latin tūberculum (diminutive of tūber (“lump”)) +‎ Latin -ōsis (“diseased condition”); by surface analysis, tubercul(um) +‎ -osis; named for the encapsulated colonies of Mycobacterium tuberculosis within the lungs in pulmonary tuberculosis, which can look like small tubers (tubercles) on gross pathology. The disease has existed throughout human experience and had other names for millennia before scientific medicine renamed it with a New Latin term in the mid-19th century (1840s); in English it was called consumption because of the wasting away that consumed health and seemed even to consume flesh in some cases (for example, causing fistulas and tissue breakdown).

tuberculosis (countable and uncountable, plural tuberculoses)

  1. (pathology) An infectious disease of humans and animals caused by a species of mycobacterium, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis, mainly infecting the lungs where it causes tubercles characterized by the expectoration of mucus and sputum, fever, weight loss, and chest pain, and transmitted through inhalation or ingestion of bacteria. [from 1839]
    • 2019, Bill Bryson, The Body: A Guide for Occupants, Black Swan (2020), page 380:
      With smallpox gone, tuberculosis is today the deadliest infectious disease on the planet.

infectious disease

tuberculosis f (uncountable)

  1. (pathology) tuberculosis (infectious disease)

tuberculosis (uncountable)

  1. alternative form of tuberculose

Proto-Indo-European *-lós

Proto-Indo-European *-elós

Proto-Indo-European *-tis

Ancient Greek -τις (-tis)

Ancient Greek -σῐς (-sĭs)

Latin tūberculōsis

From tūberculum + -ōsis.

tūberculōsis f (genitive **tūberculōsis or tūberculōseōs or tūberculōsios); third declension

  1. (New Latin, pathology) tuberculosis

Third-declension noun (Greek-type, i-stem).

1Found sometimes in Medieval and New Latin.

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

tūberculōsīs

  1. dative/ablative masculine/feminine/neuter plural of tūberculōsus

From Scientific Latin tuberculosis, from tubercŭlum (“tiny tumor”) and +‎ -osis.[1]

tuberculosis f (plural **tuberculosis)

  1. tuberculosis
    Synonym: tisis (obsolete)
  1. ^ “tuberculosis”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025

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