Word
pathological
Phoneticspatho·log·i·cal
US/ˌpæθəˈɫɑdʒɪkəɫ/
UK/pˌæθəlˈɒdʒɪkəl/
Definitions
01medical/disease
adj. relating to a physical or mental disease.
adj. pertaining to pathology; caused by or involving a physical or mental disorder.
“The doctor examined the pathological changes in the patient's lung tissue.”
“The biopsy revealed pathological abnormalities that were inconsistent with a simple viral infection, prompting further diagnostic testing.”
Technical
Usage
In medical contexts, it is the opposite of 'physiological', which refers to normal body functions.
Antonyms
03mathematics/computing
adj. describing a problem or case that is very strange and does not follow normal rules.
adj. describing a structure or case that violates standard intuition or behaves poorly under typical algorithms.
“The software crashed because it couldn't handle a pathological case in the data.”
“The function was considered pathological because it was continuous everywhere but differentiable nowhere, defying the expectations of early calculus students.”
Technical · Academic
Usage
Often used to describe 'edge cases' that break a system or theory.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Real-World Examples
“Armed with organoids grown from diseased human tissues, scientists can investigate whether new drug candidates reverse pathological changes in all or a subset of patients, and quickly identify ineffective drugs early in the process.” “The right and far-right desire to identify and then defenestrate anyone or anything that could be seen as symbolic of progress is virtually pathological.” Etymology
From pathology + -ical.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.