Definitions

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

  • adjective Characterized by intense activity, confusion, or haste.
  • adjective Medicine Of, relating to, or being a fever that fluctuates during the day, as in tuberculosis or septicemia.
  • adjective Consumptive; feverish.
  • adjective Flushed.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Habitual; marking a particular habit or condition of body: applied to fever of the form presented in phthisis, characterized by marked diurnal remissions and exacerbations, and accompanied with flushed cheeks, hot skin, and emaciation.
  • Pertaining to or affected with such fever; feverish; consumptive: as, a hectic flush.
  • noun A hectic fever; a wasting away, attended by heightened color.
  • noun A hectic flush.

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

  • noun (Med.) Hectic fever.
  • noun A hectic flush.
  • adjective Habitual; constitutional; pertaining especially to slow waste of animal tissue, as in consumption
  • adjective In a hectic condition; having hectic fever; consumptive.
  • adjective (Med.) a fever of irritation and debility, occurring usually at a advanced stage of exhausting disease, as a in pulmonary consumption.

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

  • adjective Of a fever, pertaining to bodily reactions characterised by flushed or dry skin.
  • adjective Very busy with activity and confusion; feverish.
  • noun obsolete A hectic fever.
  • noun obsolete A flush like one produced by such a fever.

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

  • adjective marked by intense agitation or emotion

Etymologies

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

[Middle English etik, recurring fever, from Old French etique, from Late Latin hecticus, from Greek hektikos, habitual, consumptive (as a fever), from hexis, habit, from ekhein, to be in a certain condition; see segh- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French etique, from Medieval Latin *hecticus, from Ancient Greek έκτικός (ektikos, "habitual, hectic, consumptive"), from έξις (exis, "a state or habit of body or of mind, condition"), from έξειν (exein, "to have, hold, intransitive be in a certain state").

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