diagnosis

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The act or process of identifying or determining the nature and cause of a disease or injury through evaluation of patient history, examination, and review of laboratory data.
• noun The opinion derived from such an evaluation.
• noun A critical analysis of the nature of something.
• noun The conclusion reached by such analysis.
• noun Biology A brief description of the distinguishing characteristics of an organism, as for taxonomic classification.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun Scientific discrimination of any kind; a short distinctive description, as of a plant.
• noun As regards the precipitins, these bodies are formed as the result of immunization of animals with albuminous substances derived from individuals of a different species. When the resultant antiserums are then brought together with solutions of the albumins used in immunization, precipitates result. This phenomenon has been notably investigated by Tchistowitsch, Bordet and Wolf, Wassermann, and Uhlenhuth, and the underlying principle utilized in forensic blood-diagnosis. To this end the material in question (stains on clothes, wood, weapons, etc.) is first examined for the presence of blood by the usual methods (hemin test, spectroscopic behavior, etc.). If the presence of blood has thus been demonstrated, the question whether it is of human origin or not is next investigated by mixing a filtered solution of the material under examination with a small amount of blood-serum obtained from a ‘humanized’ rabbit, that is, a rabbit in which precipitin formation has been previously provoked by repeated injections of human blood-serum (hydrocele fluid). The mixture is kept in an incubator, at the temperature of the body, for a number of hours and is then examined. If a precipitate results, the blood-stains are presumbly human. The differentiation of animals of closely related species is, however, not possible in this manner, and the blood of a humanized rabbit will thus not only precipitate the serum of the human being, but like wise that of the anthropoid apes. In this manner the close relationship existing between different, species can be demonstrated, a fact which renders the precipitins of signal interest also to the biologist. See also agglutination test.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun (Med.) The art or act of recognizing the presence of disease from its signs or symptoms, and deciding as to its character; also, the decision arrived at.
• noun Hence, the act or process of identifying the nature or cause of some phenomenon, especially the abnormal behavior of an animal or artifactual device.
• noun Scientific determination of any kind; the concise description of characterization of a species.
• noun Critical perception or scrutiny; judgment based on such scrutiny; esp., perception of, or judgment concerning, motives and character.
• noun (Med.) the determination of the distinguishing characteristics as between two similar diseases or conditions.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun medicine The identification of the nature and cause of an illness.
• noun The identification of the nature and cause of something (of any nature).
• noun taxonomy A written description of a species or other taxon serving to distinguish that species from all others. Especially, a description written in Latin and published.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun identifying the nature or cause of some phenomenon