disease

Pronunciation

• IPA: /dɪˈziːz/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English disese, deses,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman desease, Old French desaise “lack, want; discomfort, distress; trouble; sickness”,^[4][3][5] from des- “without, away” and aise “ease”,^[4][3][6] the source of ease.^[3][6] The verb is from Old French desaisier, from the noun.^[2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Absence of ease, discomfort, trouble: before 1338, in Mannyng's Chronicle of England,^[3] about 1330 in the OED,^[7] the early 14th century in Etymonline.^[4]

Semantic evolution

At first disease was “lack of ease, inconvenience, trouble”, as in French.^[8] The sense of sickness, first recorded in Gower's Confessio Amantis (1393), often had to be inferred from the context, as a particular discomfort;^[3][7] the restricted sense “illness” had emerged by the late 14th century.^[4] Trench notes that the limitation is natural, since nothing wars against ease like a sick body, but that disease once meant any distress:^[9] Wycliffe's Bible has “a greet diseese schal be on the erthe”, and Tyndale “why diseasest thou the master?”^[9][4] The old sense became obsolete in the 17th century,^[8] though it was still sometimes used in the early 17th century and was revived in the 20th, usually hyphenated as dis-ease.^[4][5] A particular kind of illness is from 1460–70,^[7] and a morbid condition of the mind or of society from 1509.^[7] The verb, “to make uneasy”, from the mid-14th century, is obsolete, and “to infect with disease” is from the late 15th century.^[4][7] Diseased is from before 1398.^[3]

Timeline

• before 1338 – discomfort, trouble.^[3]
• mid-14th century – verb, to make uneasy.^[4]
• 1393 – illness, sickness.^[7][3]
• before 1398 – diseased.^[3]
• 1460–70 – a particular disease.^[7]
• 1509 – a morbid condition of the mind or society.^[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A disorder of the body, mind or another living thing, with recognizable signs or symptoms; an illness.
2. A particular kind of such disorder: heart disease.
3. A harmful condition of society or of the mind.
4. (obsolete) Discomfort, trouble.

Word family

• diseased
• diseasedly
• diseasedness
• Dutch elm disease

Related words

• ease
• easy
• malaise

Usage notes

In west Somerset dialect disease still meant annoyance or discomfort in the late 19th century.^[10] The hyphenated dis-ease is used for a lack of ease.^[5][4]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
10. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)