diathesis
/dʌɪˈaθəsɪs
/noun (plural diatheses /dʌɪˈaθəsiːz/)
1 [usually with modifier] Medicine A tendency to suffer from a particular medical condition: a bleeding diathesis...
- These include arteriovenous shunts, giving rise to congestive heart failure, bleeding diathesis due to platelet consumption, and massive hemoperitoneum resulting in rupture.
- In patients without a known allergic diathesis or infectious process, BCG without eosinophilia seems more enigmatic.
- The 14% clinical gain observed in this study may be attributable to the expected proportion of 5-15% of H pylori positive patients with a true ulcer diathesis.
2 Linguistics The set of syntactic patterns with which a verb or other word is most typically associated.
Origin
Mid 17th century: modern Latin, from Greek, 'disposition', from diatithenai 'arrange'. sense 2 dates from the mid 20th century.