malnutrition

Etymology

It is formed from English mal- + nutrition.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The base noun is from Middle French nutrition and directly Late Latin nūtrītiō (“action of nourishing”), from Latin nūtriō (“to nourish, suckle, feed”).^[3][2] The prefix is from French mal (“badly”), from Latin male (“badly”).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Faulty nourishment resulting from imperfect assimilation of food: 1843, in Etymonline.^[2] The OED's first quotation is from the Dublin Medical Press of 3 April 1850,^[3] Merriam-Webster dates the word to 1862,^[4] and Dictionary.com to 1860–65.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Weekley counts it among the 19th-century coinages with mal-, like malodorous.^[7] The OED now defines it broadly, as nutrition that does not keep a person healthy, whether through too little or too much food, a lack of essential parts of the diet, or poor absorption,^[3][5] while Collins and the AHD stress too little food, an unbalanced diet and faulty assimilation.^[8][9] The Shorter Oxford also uses it for the state of poor health that results.^[5]

Timeline

• 1843 – faulty nourishment from imperfect assimilation of food.^[2] The OED's first record is from 1850.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. Poor nutrition caused by too little food, an unbalanced diet, or the body's failure to absorb or use nutrients: Many of the children in the camp showed signs of malnutrition.^[8][4][9][3]
2. The state of poor health that results from this.^[5]

Related words

• nutrition
• nourish
• nutriment
• malnourished

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
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 Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
8. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt