Definitions

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

  • noun The yellowing or whitening of normally green plant tissue because of a decreased amount of chlorophyll, often as a result of disease or nutrient deficiency.
  • noun An iron-deficiency anemia, primarily of young women, characterized by a greenish-yellow discoloration of the skin.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The greensickness, a peculiar form of anemia or bloodlessness which affects young women at or near the period of puberty.
  • noun In botany: Etiolation.
  • noun A transformation of the ordinarily colored parts of a flower into green leaf-like or sepal-like organs, as in what are known as “green roses.” Also called chloranthy.

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

  • noun (Med.) The green sickness; an anæmic disease of young women, characterized by a greenish or grayish yellow hue of the skin, weakness, palpitation, etc.
  • noun (Bot.) A disease in plants, causing the flowers to turn green or the leaves to lose their normal green color.

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

  • noun medicine (countable) An anaemia, due to deficiency of iron, characterized by a yellow-green colouration of the skin; greensickness (Wikipedia).
  • noun botany (uncountable) A yellowing of plant tissue due to loss or absence of chlorophyll (Wikipedia).

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

  • noun iron deficiency anemia in young women; characterized by weakness and menstrual disturbances and a green color to the skin

Etymologies

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Examples

  • This is true especially in young girls who have what is called chlorosis or green sickness.

    Herself Talks with Women Concerning Themselves

  • _ When the defect of the due action of both the absorbent and secerning vessels of the liver affects women, and is attended with obstruction of the catamenia, it is called chlorosis; and is cured by the exhibition of steel, which restores by its specific stimulus the absorbent power of the liver; and the menstruation, which was obstructed in consequence of debility, recurs.

    Zoonomia, Vol. II Or, the Laws of Organic Life Erasmus Darwin 1766

  • The chlorosis is another disease owing to the deficient action of the absorbents of the liver, and perhaps in some degree also to that of the secretory vessels, or glands, which compose that viscus.

    Zoonomia, Vol. II Or, the Laws of Organic Life Erasmus Darwin 1766

  • Its recovering from chlorosis, its a mineral deficiency.

    The Fortunes of Indigo Skye Deb Caletti 2009

  • Its recovering from chlorosis, its a mineral deficiency.

    The Fortunes of Indigo Skye Deb Caletti 2009

  • That is too bad about the yellow leaves, chlorosis, right?

    About Those Azaleas-My Signature Plants « Fairegarden 2009

  • Its recovering from chlorosis, its a mineral deficiency.

    The Fortunes of Indigo Skye Deb Caletti 2009

  • Its recovering from chlorosis, its a mineral deficiency.

    The Fortunes of Indigo Skye Deb Caletti 2009

  • Then right on its heels came mottled chlorosis—the poinsettia leaves were shaped fine, they just looked as if they had contracted measles.

    BAD GIRL CREEK Jo-Ann Mapson 2001

  • Unfortunately, the first visible symptom of root rot, chlorosis, can be caused by many other problems such as a shortage of nutrients, too much or too little watering, or insect or nematode damage.

    4.1 Nursery establishment 1999

  • Many syndromes were staple features of the early modern European medical imagination, including ‘hysterical suffocation’ (called by several different names in this period), melancholia, nymphomania, and chlorosis or ‘green sickness’, a condition parallel to menopause in some ways, thought to affect adolescent girls.

    A time of change: a history of our understanding of the menopause 2022

Comments

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  • Iron-deficiency anemia associated with puberty.

    June 18, 2010