dyscrasy
English
editAlternative forms
editEtymology
editFrom Middle English discrasie, from Old French discrasie, from Medieval Latin dyscrāsia, from Ancient Greek δυσκρασία (duskrasía, “bad temperament”), from δυσ- (dus-, “dys-”) + κρᾶσις (krâsis, “mixing, tempering”).[1] By surface analysis, dys- + -crasy.
Pronunciation
edit- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈdɪskɹəsɪ/[1]
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈdɪskɹəsi/
- Rhymes: -ɪskɹəsi
Noun
editdyscrasy (countable and uncountable, plural dyscrasies)
- (countable, literally) A bodily disorder; an imbalance of the humours
- Synonym: distemper
- (uncountable, figuratively) Disharmony
- Synonyms: discord, disorder, dissonance
Quotations
edit- 1829, John Mason Good, The study of medicine, page 413:
- But such a practice must not be attempted indiscriminately, and should indeed be used with great caution : for it has fallen to the author’s lot to know of not a few instances, in which the constitution has been so completely broken down by the very onset of this energetic plan, as to require, not two or three weeks, but many months, before the patient was re-enabled to take his station in society; to say nothing of the virulence which has been added to all the symptoms of the case, whether primary or secondary, in dyscrasies or idiosyncrasies which are hostile to the use of mercury.
- 1885, Homer Irvin Ostrom, A Treatise on the Breast, and Its Surgical Diseases (second edition; A.L. Chatterton & Co.), page 92:
- Have we not here the source from which dyscrasies spring?
Synonyms
edit- (literally, morbid diathesis): dyscrasia
Derived terms
editRelated terms
editReferences
edit- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 “dyscrasy, n.” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary, second edition (1989)
Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Medieval Latin
- English terms derived from Ancient Greek
- English terms prefixed with dys-
- English terms suffixed with -crasy
- English 3-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/ɪskɹəsi
- Rhymes:English/ɪskɹəsi/3 syllables
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations