MALADY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does malady mean? 

• MALADY (noun)
  The noun MALADY has 2 senses:

1. any unwholesome or desperate condition

2. impairment of normal physiological function affecting part or all of an organism

  Familiarity information: MALADY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MALADY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any unwholesome or desperate condition

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Context example:

what maladies afflict our nation?

Hypernyms ("malady" is a kind of...):

condition; status (a state at a particular time)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Impairment of normal physiological function affecting part or all of an organism

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

illness; malady; sickness; unwellness

Hypernyms ("malady" is a kind of...):

health problem; ill health; unhealthiness (a state in which you are unable to function normally and without pain)

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

condition (an illness, disease, or other medical problem)

ague (a fit of shivering or shaking)

amyloidosis (a disorder characterized by deposit of amyloid in organs or tissues; often secondary to chronic rheumatoid arthritis or tuberculosis or multiple myeloma)

anuresis; anuria (inability to urinate)

catastrophic illness (severe illness requiring prolonged hospitalization or recovery; usually involves high costs for hospitals and doctors and medicines)

collapse; prostration (an abrupt failure of function or complete physical exhaustion)

aeroembolism; air embolism; bends; caisson disease; decompression sickness; gas embolism (pain resulting from rapid change in pressure)

food poisoning; gastrointestinal disorder (illness caused by poisonous or contaminated food)

lead poisoning; plumbism; saturnism (toxic condition produced by the absorption of excessive lead into the system)

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

hypermotility (excessive movement; especially excessive motility of the gastrointestinal tract)

indisposition (a slight illness)

ozone sickness (illness that can occur to persons exposed to ozone in high-altitude aircraft; characterized by sleepiness and headache and chest pains and itchiness)

toxaemia; toxaemia of pregnancy; toxemia; toxemia of pregnancy (an abnormal condition of pregnancy characterized by hypertension and edema and protein in the urine)

growth ((pathology) an abnormal proliferation of tissue (as in a tumor))

 Context examples 

I could not help thinking that his strange, catchy little laugh was also a symptom of some nervous malady.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The malady will wear out by and by, the doctors say, but in the meantime she has to lie down for a twelvemonth.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Ancient lakes are threatened by invasive species, warming waters and a host of other maladies.

(Ancient lakes: eyes into the past, and the future, National Science Foundation)

Many, already smitten, went home only to die: some died at the school, and were buried quietly and quickly, the nature of the malady forbidding delay.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The malady itself, one from which she had often suffered, a bilious fever—its cause therefore constitutional.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

And the nascent development of treatments for microbiota-linked maladies operates under the idea that imbalances or deviations in the microbiome are the source of health problems, such as indigestion or Crohn's disease.

(Microbes are at work in our bodies, and researchers have figured out what they're up to, National Science Foundation)

The air was thick and murky with the smoke of it; and this, combined with the violent movement of the ship as she struggled through the storm, would surely have made me sea-sick had I been a victim to that malady.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Your master, Poole, is plainly seized with one of those maladies that both torture and deform the sufferer; hence, for aught I know, the alteration of his voice; hence the mask and the avoidance of his friends; hence his eagerness to find this drug, by means of which the poor soul retains some hope of ultimate recovery—God grant that he be not deceived!

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

A sad home-coming in every way—the house empty of the dear soul who was so good to us; Jonathan still pale and dizzy under a slight relapse of his malady; and now a telegram from Van Helsing, whoever he may be:—You will be grieved to hear that Mrs. Westenra died five days ago, and that Lucy died the day before yesterday. They were both buried to-day.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I told him “we fed on a thousand things which operated contrary to each other; that we ate when we were not hungry, and drank without the provocation of thirst; that we sat whole nights drinking strong liquors, without eating a bit, which disposed us to sloth, inflamed our bodies, and precipitated or prevented digestion; that prostitute female Yahoos acquired a certain malady, which bred rottenness in the bones of those who fell into their embraces; that this, and many other diseases, were propagated from father to son; so that great numbers came into the world with complicated maladies upon them; that it would be endless to give him a catalogue of all diseases incident to human bodies, for they would not be fewer than five or six hundred, spread over every limb and joint—in short, every part, external and intestine, having diseases appropriated to itself. To remedy which, there was a sort of people bred up among us in the profession, or pretence, of curing the sick. And because I had some skill in the faculty, I would, in gratitude to his honour, let him know the whole mystery and method by which they proceed.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)