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malady

Definitions

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

  • noun A disease, disorder, or ailment.
  • noun An unwholesome condition.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A physical disorder or disease; sickness or distemper of any kind; especially, a chronic, deep-seated, or dangerous disease.
  • noun Hence, moral or mental disorder; any disordered state or condition: as, social maladies.
  • noun Synonyms Infirmity, Distemper, etc. (see disease); complaint, ailment.

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

  • noun Any disease of the human body; a distemper, disorder, or indisposition, proceeding from impaired, defective, or morbid organic functions; especially, a lingering or deep-seated disorder.
  • noun A moral or mental defect or disorder.

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

  • noun Any ailment or disease of the human body; especially, a lingering or deep-seated disorder.
  • noun A moral or mental defect or disorder.

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

  • noun any unwholesome or desperate condition
  • noun impairment of normal physiological function affecting part or all of an organism

Etymologies

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

[Middle English maladie, from Old French, from malade, sick, from Latin male habitus, in poor condition : male, badly; see mel- in Indo-European roots + habitus, past participle of habēre, to hold; see ghabh- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English maladie, from Old French maladie ("sickness, illness, disease"), from malade ("ill, sick"), from Latin male habitus ("ill-kept, not in good condition"), 1st century AD. See also malice and habit.

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Examples

  • And when her imagination became occasionally darkened by that gloom which she termed her malady, nothing could be more impressive than the tone of deep and touching piety which mingled with and elevated her melancholy into a cheerful solemnity of spirit, that swayed by its pensive dignity the habits and affections of her whole family.

    Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two William Carleton 1831

  • I just pray her malady is painful and that she suffers excruciating pain on her way out.

    Barbara Bush released from hospital 2010

  • The root of contemporary (as distinguished from "modern") malady is the implication of the masses (in a sense, all of us -- no matter how personally blameless) in the "sexual revolution".

    Ideology and the destruction of body and soul 2009

  • And the APA – the organization responsible for medically determining matters such as this. bitblt says: except the malady is self-declared and there is no known case,

    Think Progress » Portugal’s parliament approves same-sex marriage. 2010

  • Descriptions of the malady from the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries relate the horror of its effects: the terrible sores and swellings, often extending into the mouth and throat, and leaving the body covered with scabs that turned from red to black; severe fever; pain in the bones so intense that patients "screamed day and night without respite, envying the dead themselves"; and, often early death.

    Pestilence and Headcolds: Encountering Illness in Colonial Mexico 2008

  • We keep in touch, I always inquire about him, he is a devotee of Khwajah Gharib Nawaz the Holy Saint of Ajmer ..now if you call his malady a disease than the first person to infect him with the poison was his uncle who gagged him and sodomized him when his family was away..he has not forgotten that and weeps each time he talks of this persecution ..this assault on his body and soul.

    Archive 2009-07-01 photographerno1 2009

  • I would have, quite literally, looked like I had just escaped from the special ed class, and the ice cream truck driver would have wondered what sort of brain malady I suffered from as I happily handed over my wadded-up dollar bills.

    Apparently, I Have An Opinion On Sports - Who Knew? tnaoqv 2006

  • Until now, the latest information on chronic wasting disease suggested that the malady is passed only via direct contact between deer.

    Wasting Disease News Flash: Deer can get disease from the dirt Dave Hurteau 2006

  • “Verily, this my malady is mortal and the shaft of death hath executed that which Allah Almighty decreed against me: this is the last of my days in the world here and the first of my days in the world hereafter.”

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • Once when they were all together, “Pray, Doctor, ” cried he, “how is it you call the malady our friend is labouring under?

    Chapter X. Book VIII 1917

Comments

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  • sonofgroucho commented on the word malady

    This sounds much more elegant than a disease!

    October 15, 2007

  • qroqqa commented on the word malady

    A surprising etymology for the second half. Abstract noun (-y) derivative of French malade "ill; sick person", earlier malabde < *malabido < Classical male habitum "having it badly".

    August 20, 2008

  • whichbe commented on the word malady

    My Malady

    November 19, 2008