• (British) IPA: /dɪˈziːz/
• (America) enPR: dĭ-zēzʹ, IPA: /dɪˈziz/

disease

1. (pathology) An abnormal condition of a human, animal or plant that causes discomfort or dysfunction; distinct from injury insofar as the latter is usually instantaneously acquired.

   The tomato plants had some kind of disease that left their leaves splotchy and fruit withered.

   • c. 1599–1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act IV, scene iii]:

     Diseases desperate grown, / By desperate appliances are relieved.

   • , Jr.

     The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public counsels have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished.

2. (by extension) Any abnormal or harmful condition, as of society, people's attitudes, way of living etc.
   • , The Urantia Book, Paper 134:6.7

     War is not man's great and terrible disease; war is a symptom, a result. The real disease is the virus of national sovereignty.

3. Lack of ease; uneasiness; trouble; vexation; disquiet.

   • So all that night they passed in great disease.

   • c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act I, scene i]:

     to shield thee from diseases of the world

• affliction
• ailment
• coath
• complaint
• ill health
• illness
• malady
• medical condition
• morbus
• rot
• sickness
• Thesaurus:disease

• French: maladie, mal
• German: Krankheit, (infectious) Infektionskrankheit, Seuche (archaic)
• Italian: malattia, malanno, disturbo, morbo
• Portuguese: doença
• Russian: боле́знь
• Spanish: enfermedad, dolencia

disease (diseases, present participle diseasing; past and past participle diseased)

1. (obsolete) To cause unease; to annoy, irritate.
   • 1526, William Tyndale, trans. Bible, Luke VIII:

     Whyll he yett speake, there cam won from the rulers off the synagogis housse, which sayde to hym: Thy doughter is deed, disease not the master.

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.ii:

     mote he soft himselfe appease, / And fairely fare on foot, how euer loth; / His double burden did him sore disease.

2. To infect with a disease.