GC: n
S: WHO (last access: 24 May 2025); NCBI (last access: 24 May 2025).
N: 1. 1721, from morbid (1650s, “of the nature of a disease, indicative of a disease,” from Latin morbidus “diseased,” from morbus “sickness, disease, ailment, illness,” from root of mori “to die) + -ity (suffix forming abstract nouns from adjectives, meaning “condition or quality of being _,” from Middle English -ite, from Old French -ité and directly from Latin -itatem (nominative -itas), suffix denoting state or condition, composed of connective -i- + -tas (see -ty (2)).
2. A diseased state or symptom <lumbar puncture, if improperly performed, may be followed by a significant morbidity—Journal of the American Medical Association>
The incidence of disease : the rate of sickness (as in a specified community or group) <while TB mortality has declined fairly steadily, morbidity has been rising—Time>—compare mortality 2.
3. Psychology (General): morbidity, morbidness.
4. Epidemiology; Demography; Statistical Surveys: morbidity, morbility.
- The number of persons in a given population who are affected by a disease.
- Morbility due to malaria decreased in Sullan in 1992.
- Morbidity statistics show the amount of disease there is in the population – the number of people living with (rather than dying from) heart disease.
5. morbility (noun).
-
morbility is probably formed within English, by derivation.
Etymons: morbid adj., ‑ility suffix.
- The earliest known use of the noun morbility is in the 1840s.
- OED’s earliest evidence for morbility is from 1848, in the writing of Robley Dunglison, physician and medical writer.
S: 1. Etymonline – http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=morbidity&searchmode=none (last access: 7 June 2015). 2. MW – http://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/morbidity (last access: 7 June 2015). 3 & 4. TERMIUM PLUS (last access: 7 October 2024). 5. OED (last access: 24 May 2025).
SYN:
S:
CR: incidence, mortality, prevalence.
