phthisis

Borrowed from Latin phthisis, from Ancient Greek φθίσις (phthísis, “consumption, decline, wasting away”), from φθίω (phthíō, “I waste away”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈ(f)θaɪsɪs/, /ˈtaɪsɪs/

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• Hyphenation: phthi‧sis

phthisis (countable and uncountable, plural phthises)

1. (archaic) An atrophy of the body or part of the body, especially pulmonary tuberculosis.
   • c. 1830-40's, Edgar Allan Poe, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar:Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe:

     For some months to my becoming acquainted with him, his physicians had declared him in a confirmed phthisis. It was his custom, indeed, to speak calmly of his approaching dissolution, as a matter neither to be avoided nor regretted.

   • 1985, Anthony Burgess, Kingdom of the Wicked:

     Tired from his journey and his chronic lung weakness, which he had saved from turning to phthisis by winter sojourns in Egypt, he was yet goodhumoured enough when his deputy reported the arrival of a gang of Jews who wanted judgment on something or someone.

• enterophthisis

• phthisic

• pthisis

From the Ancient Greek φθῐ́σῐς (phthísis).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈpʰtʰi.sis/, [ˈpʰt̪ʰɪs̠ɪs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈfti.sis/, [ˈft̪iːs̬is]

phthisis f (genitive phthisis); third declension

1. consumption, phthisis, tuberculosis

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Third-declension noun (i-stem).

• (consumption, phthisis, tuberculosis): phthoē

• phthisicō

• phthisicus

• English: phthisis
• Italian: tisi

• “phthĭsis”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “phthisis”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• phthĭsis in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette, page 1,177/3.
• “p(h)thisis” on page 1,376/2 of the Oxford Latin Dictionary (1st ed., 1968–82)