DEFICIENCY DISEASE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does deficiency disease mean? 

• DEFICIENCY DISEASE (noun)
  The noun DEFICIENCY DISEASE has 1 sense:

1. any disease caused by a lack of an essential nutrient (as a vitamin or mineral)

  Familiarity information: DEFICIENCY DISEASE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DEFICIENCY DISEASE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any disease caused by a lack of an essential nutrient (as a vitamin or mineral)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Hypernyms ("deficiency disease" is a kind of...):

disease (an impairment of health or a condition of abnormal functioning)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "deficiency disease"):

malnutrition (a state of poor nutrition; can result from insufficient or excessive or unbalanced diet or from inability to absorb foods)

zinc deficiency (a deficiency caused by inadequate zinc in the diet or by liver disease or cystic fibrosis or other diseases)

 Context examples 

Doctors use these transplants to treat people with certain diseases, such as: • Leukemia • Severe blood diseases such as thalassemias, aplastic anemia, and sickle cell anemia • Multiple myeloma • Certain immune deficiency diseases

(Bone Marrow Transplantation, NIH: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute)

Disorders of the immune system include: • Allergy and asthma - immune responses to substances that are usually not harmful • Immune deficiency diseases - disorders in which the immune system is missing one or more of its parts • Autoimmune diseases - diseases causing your immune system to attack your own body's cells and tissues by mistake

(Immune System and Disorders, NIH: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)