morbidityn.
/mɔːˈbɪdᵻti/, U.S. /mɔrˈbɪdᵻdi/ 1.
a. The condition or state of being diseased, or being caused by disease; physical or mental illness. Also (Medicine): illness, injury, or incapacity complicating a therapeutic procedure, drug administration, etc.; the frequency or degree of this.
ΘΚΠ
the world > health and disease > ill health > a disease > [noun] > morbid condition
infectiona1398
morbosity1646
morbidness1668
diseasiness1674
morbidity1721
mischief1843
1721 N. Bailey Universal Etymol. Eng. Dict. Morbidity,..diseasedness, sickliness.
1847 Littell's Living Age 25 Dec. 617/1 This test fails, because it is confessedly applied..not to the morbidity of the perception, but to the reality of the thing perceived.
1868 Putnam's Mag. July 64/1 Why do the artistic heroes and heroines of to-day claim morbidity as the prerogative of genius?
1889 Science 22 Nov. 346/2 The question, in what way transition to actual morbidity is prevented, is answered by Buchner..by the suggestion that it is the adaptation of the organism to the specific virus which makes the latter gradually lose its pathogenic properties.
1898 P. Manson Trop. Dis. i. 1 [Malaria] is the principal cause of morbidity and death in the tropics and sub-tropics.
1904 Jrnl. Anthropol. Soc. 34 277 An inordinate enlargement [of the head] is apt to be accompanied by some degree of morbidity or vulnerability.
1944 Amer. Jrnl. Surg. 65 363 The advantages of sclerotherapy are low morbidity, almost no mortality and no necessity for hospitalization.
1968 Brain 91 673 Over the following twenty-five years, with the decreasing morbidity associated with the operation, a posterior decompressive procedure became the recognized treatment of choice.
1991 Lancet 5 Jan. 45/2 The evaluation of the role of fenoterol in the increased asthma morbidity in New Zealand.
2000 Brit. Jrnl. Gen. Practice 50 204/2 These data tend to rule out the stress of assuming a domestic carer's role as a hidden explanation of the high prevalence of psychological morbidity found among the predominantly female practice managers in this study.
b. Medicine. The rate of disease, or a specific disease, in a population; = morbidity rate n. at Compounds 2.
ΘΚΠ
the world > health and disease > ill health > a disease > [noun] > prevalence of disease
run1680
morbility1848
morbidity1852
1852 Jrnl. Statist. Soc. 15 147 The broad facts of mortality, morbidity, and the mean indications of meteorological instruments, will be rendered more evident, by being grouped as below.
1882 Quain's Med. Dict. 998/2 Morbidity, this term, which is of recent introduction, is employed to denote the amount of illness existing in a given community; and, as ‘mortality’ expresses the death-rate, so ‘morbidity’ indicates the sick-rate, whether the diseases be fatal or not.
1896 T. C. Allbutt et al. Syst. Med. I. 30 The table which I have constructed in order to exhibit the relative morbidities of several groups of [French] departments.
1914 Rep. Brit. Assoc. Advancem. Sci. 176 What increase..has occurred in general morbidity in recent years, and to what extent this can be ascribed to industrial fatigue.
1967 Canad. Med. Assoc. Jrnl. 2 Sept. 522/1 The period which began with the pandemic of 1957 has been one of similar morbidity but very low mortality.
2000 Chinese Med. Jrnl. 113 113 By the end of 1998, there were 31.3 thousand malaria cases in China, with a morbidity of 0.25 per ten thousand.
2. gen. The quality or condition of being morbid (morbid adj. 2); an instance or symptom of this.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > emotion > suffering > dejection > melancholy > [noun] > unwholesome melancholy
hypo1701
hypocona1704
hyps1710
morbidity1795
1795 A. Seward Lett. (1811) IV. 364 To decry episodes of sentiment, allegory, or narrative, in didactic composition, is a singular morbidity in criticism.
1821 New Monthly Mag. 2 300 Our feelings..lie rankling and rotting into morbidity and corruption.
1825 New Monthly Mag. 15 508/2 We trust he will endeavour to shake off his morbidities, whether real or assumed.
1866 A. M. H. Brewster St. Martin's Summer 89 So many women seem to be introverted as he [sc. Hamlet] was, and also, like him, possess too great a sense of their own individuality, which, if unaccompanied by great energy, is apt to create morbidity, if not something worse.
1884 Spectator 4 Oct. 1324/1 On the whole the story is singularly free from morbidity.
1904 A. C. Bradley Shakespearean Trag. 111 It makes all his cynicism, grossness and hardness appear to us morbidities.
1936 H. A. L. Fisher Europe 183 His zeal, carried almost to the point of morbidity, in the cult of relics and the exercises of religion.
1969 R. Howard Untitled Subj. 46 I could write a Montaignish queer essay upon my morbidities.
1991 K. Jones Learning not to be First ii. 14 The poems are full of adolescent morbidity.
Compounds
C1. General attributive.
morbidity statistics n.
ΚΠ
1892 Jrnl. Royal Statist. Soc. 55 559 Insufficiency of morbidity statistics for the purpose of determining the healthiness of an occupation.
1986 G. T. F. Acsadi Optimum Conditions for Childbearing 6 It should be noted that morbidity statistics are generally of less reliable quality than mortality statistics.
C2.
morbidity rate n. the ratio of the number of cases of a disease to the number of people in a particular population at any one time or over a given period.
ΚΠ
1889 Science June 506/1 During the first six months of service the nurse enjoys comparative immunity from infection. After that, the mortality and morbidity rate steadily rises for three years.
1939 A. K. Kurtz & H. A. Edgerton Statistical Dict. 108 Morbidity rate, the ratio of the number of cases of a particular disease in a year to the midyear population, usually expressed per 100,000.
1971 Brit. Med. Bull. 27 11/2 The respiratory morbidity-rates were far in excess of those found in English areas with comparable levels of pollution.
2001 Israel Med. Assoc. Jrnl. 3 940 It was expected that these immigrants would have a higher morbidity and mortality rate similar to that in the former USSR.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2002; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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