Definitions

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

  • noun Loss of hair; baldness.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Baldness; loss of hair. Also written alopecy.

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

  • noun (Med.) Loss of the hair; baldness.

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

  • noun Baldness.
  • noun pathology Deficiency of the hair, may be caused by failure to grow or loss after growth.
  • noun medicine Loss of hair (especially on the head) or loss of wool or feathers, which either happens naturally or is caused by disease.

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

  • noun loss of hair (especially on the head) or loss of wool or feathers; in humans it can result from heredity or hormonal imbalance or certain diseases or drugs and treatments (chemotherapy for cancer)

Etymologies

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

[Latin alōpecia, fox-mange, from Greek alōpekiā, from alōpēx, alōpek-, fox; see wl̥p-ē- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin alopecia, from the Greek ἀλωπεκία (alōpekia, "fox-mange"), from ἀλώπηξ (alōpēx, "fox") + -ia, (a formative ending used in Greek, especially used in naming diseases)

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Examples

Comments

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  • Oh, fight like an angry polecat

    But chemo won’t care about that;

    Soon old alopecia,

    That gaunt gallows preacher,

    Will leave you a naked mole-rat.

    April 12, 2019