Definitions

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

  • noun The study of causes or origins.
  • noun The branch of medicine that deals with the causes or origins of disease.
  • noun Assignment of a cause, an origin, or a reason for something.
  • noun The cause or origin of a disease or disorder as determined by medical diagnosis.

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

  • noun The science of causes. Same as �tiology.

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

  • noun Alternative spelling of aetiology.

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

  • noun the cause of a disease
  • noun the philosophical study of causation

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Late Latin aetiologia, from Greek aitiologiā : aitiā, cause + -logiā, -logy.]

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The word etiology has been adopted by Donald Dean.

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