Definitions

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

  • adjective Affected by or relating to cachexia.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Pertaining to or characterized by cachexy.
  • noun One who suffers from a cachexy.

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

  • adjective Having, or pertaining to, cachexia.

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

  • adjective Having cachexia; wasting away from a disease or chronic illness.

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

  • adjective relating to or having the symptoms of cachexia

Etymologies

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

[French cachectique, from Latin cachecticus, from Greek kakhektikos, from kakhexiā, bad condition of the body; see cachexia.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin cachecticus.

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Examples

  • Dense, crunchy, intended for medical professionals (I learned two new words -- "cachectic" and "hemoptysis" -- and my medical Latin is pretty darned good for a non-doctor), and full of the usual assortment of incredibly gross but illustrative scene photos.

    you got to lift up every stone now sister colomon 2008

  • But this response is hardly universal; only some patients become cachectic, and only at certain points in their treatment.

    Keith I. Block, M.D.: How Diet Affects Cancer M.D. Keith I. Block 2010

  • But this response is hardly universal; only some patients become cachectic, and only at certain points in their treatment.

    Keith I. Block, M.D.: How Diet Affects Cancer 2010

  • Instances, indeed, are not unknown of persons who in consequence of a cachectic state have secreted sweat that resembled blood, their body having become loose and flabby, and their blood watery, owing to the heat in the small vessels having been too scanty for its concoction.

    On the Parts of Animals 2002

  • Mr. Bradshaw expected naturally to see a youth of imperfect constitution, and cachectic or dyspeptic tendencies, who was in training to furnish one of those biographies beginning with the statement that, from his infancy, the subject of it showed no inclination for boyish amusements, and so on, until he dies out, for the simple reason that there was not enough of him to live.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. Various

  • He had been in poor health for a number of years, and was then in a very cachectic condition.

    The Electric Bath George M. Schweig

  • Miss Letty was altogether too wholesome, hearty, and high-strung a young girl to be a model, according to the flat-chested and cachectic pattern which is the classical type of certain excellent young females, often the subjects of biographical memoirs.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 35, September, 1860 Various

  • As he was not cachectic and no apparent ganglion was found, and as his thoracic respiration was perfect, it seemed to be indicated that an incision should be made in his stomach.

    Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 Various

  • No hectic heat of skin, but an extraordinary depression of the arterial action, arising evidently from the redundancy of carbon deposited in the pulmonary tissue, preventing the proper oxygenation of the blood circulating in the organs, and thereby producing a morbid effect on the whole system, which sufficiently explains the cachectic condition of the body.

    An Investigation into the Nature of Black Phthisis or Ulceration Induced by Carbonaceous Accumulation in the Lungs of Coal Miners Archibald Makellar

  • All cachectic or morbid nutrition conditions are due to imperfect lymph.

    Valere Aude Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration Louis Dechmann

Comments

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  • "Laymen called it 'consumption,' and that name spoke to the awfulness of the disease. It consumed people. Like cancer, it attacked the young as well as the old, sucked the life out of them, turned them into cachectic shells, and then killed them."

    —John M. Barry, The Great Influenza (NY: Penguin Books, 2004), 52

    February 11, 2009