morbidity

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   an unhealthy or excessive interest in gloomy or disturbing subjects, especially illness and death

   Lady Bracknell declares that Bunbury has been well punished for his morbidity.

2. 2
   noun

   the frequency or rate of illness or disease within a particular population

   The study compared respiratory morbidity across three industrial regions.

3. 3
   noun

   the state of having a disease, disability, or other medical condition; ill health

   The treatment reduced mortality but did not eliminate long-term morbidity.

Formed from morbid + -ity, ultimately from Latin morbidus ('diseased'), from morbus ('disease'). English first used it for a diseased or unhealthy state; the statistical medical sense and the figurative sense of an unhealthy fixation both developed from that core.

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