Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- In anatomy, of or pertaining to the spinal column; spinal; vertebral.
- Pertaining to or affected with rachitis; rickety.
- Of or pertaining to a mountain ridge or range.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. (Med.) Of or pertaining to rachitis; affected by rachitis; rickety.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. affected with, suffering from, or characteristic of rickets
Etymologies
- From rachitis + -ic. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Using tables to explain the required levels of these key nutrients, the publication offers illustrations of various problems such as rachitic rosaries and abnormal bone formation caused when producers do not provide adequate levels of calcium, phosphorous, and vitamin D3.”
“A rachitic Jewess cleans the barracks, the boy's eye turns, with pity, with lust; he gives her bread.”
“Common features of rickets include softness of the infant's skull (craniotabes) and enlargement of the front end of the ribs (creating the "rachitic rosary").”
“At a time when huge problems -- from the cataclysm in the Gulf of Mexico, to the disaster in Afghanistan, to the collapse of the Greek economy -- beg for the full, muscular engagement of scholars and scientists, most of what the American academia has to offer is rachitic, self-aggrandizing, and blatantly irrelevant.”
“Just so people know, anti-rachitic means "therapeutically effective against rickets.”
“Of course milk has lost part of its merit as a source of vit D because, as weston price put it, "the anti-rachitic value of the milk depends on the degreee of insolation of the cow".”
“The girl was not rachitic or in a state of malnutrition.”
“As the bone presents no sign of rachitic degeneration, it may be supposed that an injury sustained during life was the cause of the anchylosis.”
“Otherwise, unless it had been such a grim day that he could only stare at his kitchen wall and drink beer, he would get his chess set and walk down to the park, past the weary peddler women chanting house-to-house, past the packs of rachitic, turd-colored dogs, past the crazy man who squatted by the Church of the Sacred Heart sweeping handfuls of dirt across his chest.”
“(Other words that had me rifling through the dictionary: “gryke,” “rachitic,” “siwash,” “loess.”)”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘rachitic’.
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Words That Mean Things
I found most of these words in books! That means they MUST be good.
flinders, periplus, palaver, midden, cadge, legerdemain, flense, lapidary, geas, bailey, susurration, satoris and 128 more...
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bintalshamsa's list
My Favorite Words
weltschmerz, perspicacity, idée fixe, invigilator, salubrious, tchotchke, ex nihilo, invidious, malapropism, naïve, sardonic, elide and 1459 more...
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azd's Words
adamantine, abatial, ablate, ablative, abrogate, accretive, acromegaly, acrostic, actinism, actinic, acuity, adduce and 968 more...
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madamepsychosis's Words
mollify, salubrious, prandial, coup de grace, ineluctable, metempsychosis, pedant, conatus, oeuvre, laconic, solipsism, vapid and 265 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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the road
glaucoma, tarpaulin, flowstone, flue, rimstone, alabaster, gully, shoring, grike, riprap, windfall, transom and 120 more...
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looked up
Words I've come across while reading and looked up in the dictionary.
deesis, pendentive, revetment, aedicule, stemma, patera, ephod, entrepot, corbel, exedra, volute, archivolt and 1408 more...
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Adjectival Arcana
A roster of adjectives that infrequently surface in typical conversation and writing. Many are dredged from scientific or other technical jargon or sieved from examples of disused archaic forms.
unitegmic, acaulescent, reticuloendothelial, ingressive, uniate, acanthopterygian, ossific, epiphysial, perivisceral, acœlomatous, cestoid, acælomate and 7756 more...
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richardr's Words
marmoreal, osteology, tyromancy, metalepsis, idioglossia, tapinosis, epicaricacy, carromancy, rogation, senex, aulic, gemütlichkeit and 279 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, R
retinol, rectory, rhubarb, rancor, recension, rood, redivivus, roborate, redound, ripsnorting, ragtag, recruit and 250 more...
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The Road
Cormac McCarthy
glaucoma, tarpaulin, ford, ratchet, slutlamp, mote, shoring, gryke, riprap, transom, manila, cleat and 68 more...
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The Road
Words from McCarthy's masterpiece
kudzu, patterans, cakebell, culvert, catamite, bivouacked, krugerrand, mendicant, formica, phalanx, rachitic, lacquered and 34 more...
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While reading
littoral, manichean, omerta, opprobrium, discomfit, betise, tittle, pellucid, chiffonier, hagiographic, essoin, raiment and 35 more...
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bccall's Words
schadenfreude, feckless, trawl, dhyana, yoga, sannyasin, ameliorate, wazoo, equitable, grace, prana, pranayama and 50 more...
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Astrid's list
Words that intrigue me, begun after reading Cormak McCarthy's 'The Road'.
rachitic, referents, explorative, avuncular, indeterminate, trapunto, digitabulist, incontrovertible
Tweets
Looking for tweets for rachitic.

sloanepeterson Looking up this word is what led me to Wordnik.
He came forward, holding his belt by one hand. The holes in it marked the progress of his emaciation and the leather at one side had a lacquered look to it where he was used to stropping the blade of his knife... He was lean, wiry, rachitic. - The Road, Cormac McCarthy (p. 63) Jan 26, 2010