malady
noun
Simple meaning
Any ailment or disease of the body.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
maluhdeeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈmælədi
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.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Any ailment or disease of the body; especially, a lingering or deep-seated disorder.
A moral or mental defect or disorder.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Any ailment or disease of the body; especially, a lingering or deep-seated disorder.
Used this way, malady is a specialist word with a faintly unfavourable edge. It carries more force than its gentler alternatives. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Strong
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Clinical and detached
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.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: any ailment or disease of the body
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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.