alopecia
pronunciation
How to pronounce alopecia in British English:
UK [ˌælə'pi:ʃə]
How to pronounce alopecia in American English:
US [ˌælə'piʃə]
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- Noun:
- loss of hair (especially on the head) or loss of wool or feathers; in humans it can result from heredity or hormonal imbalance or certain diseases or drugs and treatments (chemotherapy for cancer)
Word Origin
- alopecia
- alopecia: [14] This word appears to derive from the resemblance observed by the Greeks between baldness in human beings and mange in foxes. The Greek for ‘fox’ was alōpēx, hence alōpekía, borrowed into Latin as alopēcia. Alōpēx is related to Latin vulpēs ‘fox’, from which English gets vulpine ‘foxlike’ [17].=> vulpine
Example
- 1. It caused me so much stress , I got alopecia and lost all my hair all over my body .
- 2. The cyclical alopecia continued for more than two years and the researchers observed that the mutant mice had enlarged oil-secreting sebaceous glands around the hair follicle and a thickened layer of skin cells during periods of hair loss .
- 3. Babies exposed to chemotherapy while in the womb appeared to have no higher risk of birth defects , no lower scores of wellbeing at birth , no more frequent blood disorders or alopecia than those whose mothers did not receive chemotherapy while pregnant .
- 4. When the body 's immune system attacks hair follicles or other cells or tissues important to hair growth and maintenance it can result in hair loss of various kinds including cicatricial alopecia ( a form of permanent hair loss ) and telogen effluvium ( which occurs when hair 's growth cycle is disrupted ) .