rickets

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a childhood disorder in which poor bone mineralization, often from vitamin D deficiency, makes bones soft or deformed

   Severe vitamin D deficiency can cause rickets in growing children.

Recorded in seventeenth-century English, originally as a regional disease name in southwestern England. Its origin is uncertain; the learned synonym rachitis was later associated with it partly because of their similar sound.

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