Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. A disease, a disorder, or an ailment.
- n. An unwholesome condition: the malady of discontent.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. Any ailment or disease of the human body; especially, a lingering or deep-seated disorder.
- n. A moral or mental defect or disorder.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- n. Any disease of the human body; a distemper, disorder, or indisposition, proceeding from impaired, defective, or morbid organic functions; especially, a lingering or deep-seated disorder.
- n. A moral or mental defect or disorder.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A physical disorder or disease; sickness or distemper of any kind; especially, a chronic, deep-seated, or dangerous disease.
- n. Hence, moral or mental disorder; any disordered state or condition: as, social maladies.
- n. Synonyms Infirmity, Distemper, etc. (see disease); complaint, ailment.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. any unwholesome or desperate condition
- n. impairment of normal physiological function affecting part or all of an organism
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Examples
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And when her imagination became occasionally darkened by that gloom which she termed her malady, nothing could be more impressive than the tone of deep and touching piety which mingled with and elevated her melancholy into a cheerful solemnity of spirit, that swayed by its pensive dignity the habits and affections of her whole family.
Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two
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And the APA – the organization responsible for medically determining matters such as this. bitblt says: except the malady is self-declared and there is no known case,
Think Progress » Portugal’s parliament approves same-sex marriage.
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I just pray her malady is painful and that she suffers excruciating pain on her way out.
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The root of contemporary (as distinguished from "modern") malady is the implication of the masses (in a sense, all of us -- no matter how personally blameless) in the "sexual revolution".
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Descriptions of the malady from the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries relate the horror of its effects: the terrible sores and swellings, often extending into the mouth and throat, and leaving the body covered with scabs that turned from red to black; severe fever; pain in the bones so intense that patients "screamed day and night without respite, envying the dead themselves"; and, often early death.
Pestilence and Headcolds: Encountering Illness in Colonial Mexico
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We keep in touch, I always inquire about him, he is a devotee of Khwajah Gharib Nawaz the Holy Saint of Ajmer ..now if you call his malady a disease than the first person to infect him with the poison was his uncle who gagged him and sodomized him when his family was away..he has not forgotten that and weeps each time he talks of this persecution ..this assault on his body and soul.
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“Verily, this my malady is mortal and the shaft of death hath executed that which Allah Almighty decreed against me: this is the last of my days in the world here and the first of my days in the world hereafter.”
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I would have, quite literally, looked like I had just escaped from the special ed class, and the ice cream truck driver would have wondered what sort of brain malady I suffered from as I happily handed over my wadded-up dollar bills.
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Until now, the latest information on chronic wasting disease suggested that the malady is passed only via direct contact between deer.
Wasting Disease News Flash: Deer can get disease from the dirt
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Once when they were all together, Pray, Doctor, cried he, how is it you call the malady our friend is labouring under?
whichbe commented on the word malady
My Malady
November 19, 2008
qroqqa commented on the word malady
A surprising etymology for the second half. Abstract noun (-y) derivative of French malade "ill; sick person", earlier malabde < *malabido < Classical male habitum "having it badly".
August 20, 2008
sonofgroucho commented on the word malady
This sounds much more elegant than a disease!
October 15, 2007