malacia

English

Etymology

From Latin malacia, from Ancient Greek μαλακία (malakía, “softness, sickness”).

Noun

malacia (countable and uncountable, plural malacias)

1. (medicine, pathology) Abnormal softening of organs or tissues of the human body. [from 19th c.]
   • 1860, Rudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow, Cellular Pathology as Based Upon Physiological and Pathological Histology, page 318:

     As soon, namely, as a process of this sort sets in in a compound organ, as for example, a muscle, a palpable myo-malacia is certainly produced when all the muscular elements at a given point are at once affected; but it happens far more frequently that, in the course of a muscle, only a comparatively small number of primitive fasciculi are affected, whilst the others remain almost intact.

2. (medicine, obsolete) An abnormal craving for certain types of food. [from 17th c.]
   • 1916, A. J. Carlson, The Control of hunger in health and disease, page 267:

     The least abnormal condition appears to be the malacia, or desire for highly spiced or acid foods that are sometimes seen in chlorotic girls and in pregnant women.

Derived terms

• bronchomalacia
• cardiomalacia
• craniomalacia
• hepatomalacia
• leukomalacia
• myelomalacia
• odontomalacia
• osteomalacia
• polioencephalomalacia
• tracheomalacia

 

Translations

softening of organs or tissue

craving

• French: malacie (fr) f
• Galician: malacía (gl) f

References

• “malacia”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Anagrams

• Calamia

Italian

Etymology

From Latin malacia, from Ancient Greek μαλακία (malakía, “softness, sickness”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ma.laˈt͡ʃi.a/
• Rhymes: -ia
• Hyphenation: ma‧la‧cì‧a

Noun

malacia f (plural malacie)

1. (pathology) malacia

Derived terms

• osteomalacia

Anagrams

• Calamai, Calamia, calamai, lamaica

Latin

Etymology

From Ancient Greek μαλακία (malakía, “softness”), from μᾰλᾰκός (malakós, “soft”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /maˈla.ki.a/, [mäˈɫ̪äkiä]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /maˈla.t͡ʃi.a/, [mäˈläːt͡ʃiä]

Noun

malacia f (genitive malaciae); first declension

1. a calm at sea, dead calm
   • c. 52 BCE, Julius Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Gallico 3.15:

     Ac iam conversis in eam partem navibus quo ventus ferebat, tanta subito malacia ac tranquillitas exstitit ut se ex loco movere non possent.

     And they had headed all their vessels down the wind, when suddenly a calm so complete and absolute came on that they could not stir from the spot.

   • c. 65 CE, Seneca the Younger, Epistulae morales ad Lucilium 67.14–15:

     Nihil habere, ad quod exciteris, ad quod te concites, cuius denuntiatione et incursu firmitatem animi tui temptes, sed in otio inconcusso iacere non est tranquillitas; malacia est.

     If you have nothing to stir you up and rouse you to action, nothing which will test your resolution by its threats and hostilities; if you recline in unshaken comfort, it is not tranquillity; it is merely a flat calm.

2. (medicine) loss of appetite, nausea

Declension

First-declension noun.

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	malacia	malaciae
Genitive	malaciae	malaciārum
Dative	malaciae	malaciīs
Accusative	malaciam	malaciās
Ablative	malaciā	malaciīs
Vocative	malacia	malaciae

Derived terms

• *bonacia

 

References

• “malacia”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “malacia”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers