diarrhoea
pronunciation
How to pronounce diarrhoea in British English:
UK [ˌdaɪə'rɪə]
How to pronounce diarrhoea in American English:
US [ˌdaɪə'riə]
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- Noun:
- frequent and watery bowel movements; can be a symptom of infection or food poisoning or colitis or a gastrointestinal tumor
Word Origin
- diarrhoea
- diarrhoea: [16] Diarrhoea means literally ‘through-flow’ (and hence semantically is a parallel formation to diabetes). It comes via late Latin diarrhoea from Greek diárrhoia, a term coined by the physician Hippocrates for ‘abnormally frequent defecation’. It was formed from the prefix dia- ‘through’ and rhein ‘flow’ (a relative of English rheumatism and stream).Of other -rrhoea formations (or -rrhea, as it is generally spelled in American English), pyorrhoea ‘inflammation of the tooth sockets’ was coined in the early 19th century, and logorrhoea at around the turn of the 20th, originally as a clinical term in psychology (although subsequently hijacked as a facetious synonym for ‘talkativeness’).=> rheumatism, stream
- diarrhoea
- variant spelling of diarrhea (q.v.); see also oe.
Example
- 1. Then he had the flu , then diarrhoea .
- 2. Eg. rotavirus can cause very unpleasant vomiting and diarrhoea .
- 3. The result is disease , particularly diarrhoea .
- 4. Sufferers endure diarrhoea , loss of weight and potentially malnutrition .
- 5. Diarrhoea is forecast to rise 5 % by 2020 in poor countries because of climate change .