Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Sharp, severe paroxysmal pain extending along a nerve or group of nerves.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A pain, corresponding frequently to the distribution of some one nerve, which is not due immediately and simply to excessive stimulation of the nerve or nerves involved by some gross or extra-nervous lesion, but to a nutritive or other molecular change in the nerves themselves or their central connections. The pain is usually paroxysmal, varying in intensity, and described as shooting, stabbing, boring, burning, or deep-seated. Neuralgia is largely confined to adult life, is more frequent in women than in men, and is especially apt to occur in neuropathic individuals. It is induced by cold, exhaustion (from overwork, worry, over-lactation, mental shock, lack of food and rest), anemia, malaria, alcohol, lead, and glycohemia. In addition to this so-called idiopathic neuralgia, symptomatic neuralgia is sometimes used to designate neuralgiform pains incident to some gross lesion.
- n. See the adjectives.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A disease, the chief symptom of which is a very acute pain, exacerbating or intermitting, which follows the course of a nervous branch, extends to its ramifications, and seems therefore to be seated in the nerve. It seems to be independent of any structural lesion.
WordNet 3.0
- n. acute spasmodic pain along the course of one or more nerves
Examples
“To the pain thus excited the term neuralgia is commonly applied, or 'tic;' or, if the large nerve running down the thigh be the seat of the pain, 'sciatica.”
Grappling with the Monster The Curse and the Cure of Strong Drink
“It was the misfortune of Miss Salmon to suffer periodically and acutely from biliousness (which she called neuralgia).”
“Whenever the course of events proved objectionable, Miss Rylance took refuge in a complaint which she called her neuralgia, indicating that it was a species of disorder peculiar to herself, and of a superior quality to everybody else's neuralgia.”
“The headaches intensified into the excruciating flashes of facial pain known as neuralgia.”
“This change, as I have seen in my practice of medicine, passes up the nerves towards the centres, and occasions a more or less constant irritation of the nerve-fibres, producing neuralgia, which is usually referred to that part of the lost limb to which the affected nerve belongs.”
“This change, as I have seen in my practice of medicine, sometimes passes up the nerves toward the centers, and occasions a more or less constant irritation of the nerve - fibers, producing neuralgia, which is usually referred by the brain to that part of the lost limb to which the affected nerve belonged.”
“The neuralgia was a mild and kindly hint of Providence not to do it again, but I am rejoiced it has vanished.”
“This change, as I have seen in my practice of medicine, sometimes passes up the nerves toward the centers, and occasions a more or less constant irritation of the nerve-fibers, producing neuralgia, which is usually referred by the brain to that part of the lost limb to which the affected nerve belonged.”
“A cough is simply an effort of the lungs or bronchiæ to remove some offending intruder that ought to be doing duty elsewhere; and may we not call neuralgia _a cough of a nerve_ to get rid of a disagreeable oppression -- nature's legitimate _coup d'état_ to put down and transport those "_red socialist_" particles that would interfere with the regularity of its constitution?”
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852
“Trigeminal neuralgia, a.k.a. tic douloureaux or the "suicide disease," is chronic pain that results when a blood vessel presses against the trigeminal nerve, one of the largest nerves in the head.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘neuralgia’.
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It Hurts When I Do This
Pain words. Ouch!
gonyalgia, neuralgia, cephalalgia, nephralgia, adenalgia, aerodontalgia, arthralgia, arthroneuralgia, brachialgia, cardialgia, causalgia, cœlialgia and 62 more...
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-algia, -algy
involving pain
neuralgia, nostalgia, myalgia, fibromyalgia, algetic, algesiometer, algophobia, coxalgy
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