tubercular

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jump to navigation Jump to search

English

[edit]

Etymology

[edit]

Latin tuberculum (diminutive of tuber (lump)) +‎ -ar

Pronunciation

[edit]
  • Audio (UK):(file)

Adjective

[edit]

tubercular (comparative more tubercular, superlative most tubercular)

  1. Of, pertaining to, or having tuberculosis.
    Synonym: tuberculous
    • 1924 November 24, “Critical Inspection of a Myth”, in Time:
      As he grew older, his tubercular thinness tended toward emaciation.
    • 1929, Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel[1], Part One, Chapter 1:
      He set up business in Sydney, the little capital city of one of the middle Southern states, lived soberly and industriously under the attentive eye of a folk still raw with defeat and hostility, and finally, his good name founded and admission won, he married a gaunt tubercular spinstress, ten years his elder, but with a nest egg and an unshakable will to matrimony.
    • 1941, Emily Carr, chapter 5, in Klee Wyck[2]:
      There had been, too, all the long weeks of Rosie’s tubercular dying to go through.
    • 2012, Will Self, “Kafka’s Wound, A digital essay” London Review of Books website,[3]
      The adult Kafka – the Kafka vermiculated by tubercular bacilli after having been played on for decades, as a demonic organist might press fleshy keys and pull bony stops, by his own relentless neurasthenia – reached a mystical appreciation of his youthful velleity, characterising it as a desire both to expertly hammer together a table and at the same time ‘do nothing’.
  2. Relating to or reminiscent of the wheezing sounds associated with the breathing of tuberculosis patients.
  3. Tuberculate.
    • 1930, Emily Pelloe, West Australian Orchids[5], page 13:
      “ORANGE ORCHID” “SPOTTED ORCHID” [] Dorsal appendage of the hood of column smooth, tubercular and notched at the end.

Derived terms

[edit]

Translations

[edit]

Noun

[edit]

tubercular (plural tuberculars)

  1. (dated) A person who has tuberculosis.
    • 1954, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Appropriations, Hearings, page 907:
      They are the tuberculars, the psychiatrics, and the older men suffering from chronic conditions. All of those men are totally disabled.

Interlingua

[edit]

Adjective

[edit]

tubercular (not comparable)

  1. tubercular, tuberculose