encephalitis

noun

Simple meaning

Inflammation of the brain.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

ehnsuhfuhlytuhs

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US device voice

IPA pronunciation (US)

ɛnsɛfəˈlaɪtəs

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

pathology
Inflammation of the brain.
pathology
Inflammation of the brain usually caused by a virus; symptoms include headache and neck pain and drowsiness and nausea and fever (`phrenitis' is no longer in scientific use)

Word at a Glance

Difficulty: C1 · Advanced (estimated)
Frequency: Uncommon
Formality: Technical

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

This meaning: (pathology) Inflammation of the brain.

Used this way, encephalitis is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.

Emotional tone: Neutral
Formality: Specialist/technical
Intensity: Not strongly marked
How common: Specialized
Connotation: Clinical and technical
Usage feel: Technical and specialized

Where it naturally appears

Medicine/healthcare
Science
Technical/specialist writing

Usage note

In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

equine encephalitisviral encephalitisepidemic encephalitisherpes encephalitisencephalitis virusacute encephalitisencephalitis viruses

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

encephalitis lethargicanounCompound term
An encephalitis that was epidemic between 1915 and 1926.
bovine spongiform encephalitisnounCompound term
A fatal disease of cattle that affects the central nervous system.
dawson's encephalitisnounCompound term
A rare chronic progressive encephalitis caused by the measles virus and occurring primarily in children and young adults.
epidemic encephalitisnounCompound term
An encephalitis that was epidemic between 1915 and 1926.
equine encephalitisnounCompound term
Encephalitis caused by a virus that is transmitted by a mosquito from an infected horse.
herpes encephalitisnounCompound term
Common form of acute encephalitis caused by herpes simplex 1.

Related words

Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.

sclerosing leukoencephalitisnounRelated term
A rare chronic progressive encephalitis caused by the measles virus and occurring primarily in children and young adults.
subacute sclerosing leukoencephalitisnounRelated term
A rare chronic progressive encephalitis caused by the measles virus and occurring primarily in children and young adults.
subacute sclerosing panencephalitisnounRelated term
A rare chronic progressive encephalitis caused by the measles virus and occurring primarily in children and young adults.

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.