tuberculosis

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun infection transmitted by inhalation or ingestion of tubercle bacilli and manifested in fever and small lesions (usually in the lungs but in various other parts of the body in acute stages)

Etymology

To international scientific vocabulary from New Latin tūberculōsis, from Latin tūberculum (diminutive of tūber (“lump”)) + Latin -ōsis (“diseased condition”); by surface analysis, tubercul(um) + -osis; named for the encapsulated colonies of Mycobacterium tuberculosis within the lungs in pulmonary tuberculosis, which can look like small tubers (tubercles) on gross pathology. The disease has existed throughout human experience and had other names for millennia before scientific medicine renamed it with a New Latin term in the mid-19th century (1840s); in English it was called consumption because of the wasting away that consumed health and seemed even to consume flesh in some cases (for example, causing fistulas and tissue breakdown).

In classic literature

Synonyms

TB, T.B.

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