Definitions

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

  • noun Sharp, severe paroxysmal pain extending along a nerve or group of nerves.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun 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.
  • noun See the adjectives.

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

  • noun (Med.) 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.

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

  • noun pathology, neurology An acute, severe, intermittent pain that radiates along a nerve.

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

  • noun acute spasmodic pain along the course of one or more nerves

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From New Latin neuralgia, from Ancient Greek νεῦρον (neuron, "nerve") + ἄλγος (algos, "pain").

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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 1847

  • It was the misfortune of Miss Salmon to suffer periodically and acutely from biliousness (which she called neuralgia).

    This Freedom 1925

  • 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 Golden Calf 1875

  • The headaches intensified into the excruciating flashes of facial pain known as neuralgia.

    Mark Twain Ron Powers 2005

  • The headaches intensified into the excruciating flashes of facial pain known as neuralgia.

    Mark Twain Ron Powers 2005

  • 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.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 Various

  • 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 Autobiography of a Quack 1899

  • The neuralgia was a mild and kindly hint of Providence not to do it again, but I am rejoiced it has vanished.

    Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 3 Leonard Huxley 1896

  • 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 Autobiography of a Quack and the Case of George Dedlow 1871

  • 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 Various 1841

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