disease

Etymology

From Middle English disese, from Anglo-Norman desese, disaise, from Old French desaise, from des- + aise. Equivalent to dis- + ease. Displaced native Middle English adle, audle (“disease”) (from Old English ādl (“disease, sickness”), see adle), Middle English cothe, coathe (“disease”) (from Old English coþu (“disease”), see coath).

noun

1. (medicine) An abnormal condition of a human, animal or plant that causes discomfort or dysfunction; distinct from injury insofar as the latter is usually instantaneously acquired.
   The tomato plants had some kind of disease that left their leaves splotchy and fruit withered.
   The instability, injustice, and confusion, introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have every where perished; […] November 22, 1787, James Madison Jr., Federalist No. 10
   Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. […] When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose. 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 5, in Mr. Pratt's Patients
   […] the awfully hearty sort of Christmas cards that people do send to other people that they don't know at all well. You know. The kind that have mottoes […] And then, when you see [the senders], you probably find that they are the most melancholy old folk with malignant diseases. 1922, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, →OL
   Conditions were horrendous aboard most British naval vessels at the time. Scurvy and other diseases ran rampant, killing more seamen each year than all other causes combined, including combat. 2012-03, William E. Carter, Merri Sue Carter, “The British Longitude Act Reconsidered”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 87
2. (by extension) Any abnormal or harmful condition, as of society, people's attitudes, way of living etc.
   War is not man's great and terrible disease; war is a symptom, a result. The real disease is the virus of national sovereignty. 1955, The Urantia Book, Paper 134:6.7
3. Lack of ease; uneasiness; trouble; vexation; disquiet.

verb

1. (obsolete) To cause unease; to annoy, irritate.
2. To infect with a disease.