Definitions

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

  • noun A group of symptoms that collectively indicate or characterize a disease, psychological disorder, or other abnormal condition.
  • noun A complex of symptoms indicating the existence of an undesirable condition or quality.
  • noun A distinctive or characteristic pattern of behavior.
  • noun A group of anatomical and often physiological characteristics of an organism that serve a specific function and are presumed to have evolved together.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Concurrence.
  • noun In medicine, the concourse or combination of symptoms in a disease; a symptom-complex; a symptom-group. Compare prodrome, 2.

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

  • noun rare Concurrence.
  • noun (Med.) A group of symptoms occurring together that are characteristic and indicative of some underlying cause, such as a disease.
  • noun generally, a pattern of characteristics or behaviors occurring together, that are sufficiently common and distinctive to indicate that they are due to a known cause.

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

  • noun pathology A recognizable pattern of signs, symptoms and/or behaviours.

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

  • noun a pattern of symptoms indicative of some disease
  • noun a complex of concurrent things

Etymologies

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

[Greek sundromē, concurrence of symptoms, from sundromos, running together : sun-, syn- + dromos, a running.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek συνδρομή (syndrome, "concurrence of symptoms, concourse"), from σύνδρομος (syndromos, "running together"), from συν- (syn-, "with") + δρόμος (dromos, "running, course").

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Examples

  • Promoted to Headline (H3) on 12/13/09: In borrowing from China, we created our own economic ‘China syndrome 'yahooBuzzArticleHeadline =' In borrowing from China, we created our own economic ‘China syndrome\ ''; yahooBuzzArticleSummary = 'Article: These U.S. oil firms must be facing their own ‘Shock and Awe\'.

    In borrowing from China, we created our own economic ���China syndrome' 2009

  • "Toasted skin syndrome" is what Swiss researchers have dubbed a mottled-skin condition caused by long-term heat exposure.

    Toasted skin syndrome: Laptops burning skin Melissa Bell 2010

  • Those extra chemicals generally didn't count as un-natural until the Chicken Nugget incident of 2015 when over three hundred thousand fast food patrons concocted a rare form of modified protein syndrome from the GM chicken they consumed.

    Archive 2008-03-01 Code Monkey 2008

  • Those extra chemicals generally didn't count as un-natural until the Chicken Nugget incident of 2015 when over three hundred thousand fast food patrons concocted a rare form of modified protein syndrome from the GM chicken they consumed.

    Thoughts: How to Raise your Cyborg Child: A Self Help Article Code Monkey 2008

  • "It appears to be much worse during seasonal allergy seasons," says Plaut, who explains that the syndrome is a result of a cross reactivity between the proteins in the pollens a person is allergic to and the proteins in certain foods that are structurally similar to those in the pollens.

    Allergy sufferers journey into the season of symptoms 2010

  • A characteristic morphologic feature of hair in this syndrome is a triangular to reniform to heart shape on cross-sections, and a groove, canal or flattening along the entire length of the hair in at least 50% of hairs examined by scanning electron microscopy.

    Boing Boing 2008

  • This would end what he described as the syndrome of separation between the work of the police and that of the justice system, with police cases often collapsing in the country's courts.

    ANC Daily News Briefing 2000

  • I just know that the "syndrome" is what we would usually call people who are "nerds" or "geeks": they have facility with math and abstract concepts but find social interaction difficult and are very bad at reading the body language of others.

    The Spice Must Flow darkerblogistan 2009

  • Nevoid basal cell carcinoma syndrome (NBCCS), also known as “Gorlin syndrome, is a hereditary cancer syndrome characterized by:

    Nevoid Basal Cell Carcinoma Syndrome 2010

  • This discovery gave them the idea that the gene that causes Alagille syndrome is probably located on the missing portion of DNA on chromosome 20.

    Genetics and Alagille Syndrome 2009

  • CA, for instance, deteriorates after exposure to acids or heat, giving off acetic acid and lending the term ‘vinegar syndrome’ to the breakdown of film stock.

    Plastic Archeology. George Cave 2023

  • If satellites collide in orbit, they produce clouds of debris that can destroy other satellites, potentially starting a chain reaction known as the Kessler syndrome.

    Are Elon Musk's ‘megaconstellations’ a blight on the night sky? Stuart Clark 2020

  • Others have suggested that the site suffers from “tired mountain syndrome,” a condition where the mountain itself is weakened from the massive stress of repeated nuclear detonations.

    What's North Korea's Endgame? - ClearanceJobs Tom McCuin 2018

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