induration

English

Alternative forms

• enduration

Etymology

Via French from Latin indurare ‘make hard’, from in- + durus ‘hard’.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ɪndjʊˈɹeɪʃən/

Noun

induration (uncountable)

1. Hardness, or the process of becoming hard.
   • 1980. Anthony Burgess, Earthly Powers:

     The voice was harder than I had known, and not only in stony reaction to long floods of wholly just selfpity, also roughened with gin and smoke, perhaps also assimilated to New York induration, the hardness of culture as well as of pain.

2. (medicine) (a) Hardening of an area of the body as a reaction to inflammation, hyperemia, or neoplastic infiltration, or (b) An area or part of the body that has undergone such a reaction. Most often this term is used to describe dermatologic findings.
   • 2005. Kimura, et al. "Comparison of erythema and induration as results of tuberculin tests. Int J Tuberc Lung Dis. 2005;9(8):853-7. PMID 16104630:

     Both erythema and induration appear to be adequate indices of tuberculin sensitivity.

   • 2005. Race, et al. "Painful nodule with induration and spreading erythema." Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings. 2005;18(4):401–404:

     The erythema had spread to 20 cm, and the central induration had spread to 9 cm.

References

• Induration, Merriam-Webster online.
• Induation, In Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. Random House, Inc. 2001. Page 975. ISBN 037572026.