Definition of "cirrhosis" [cir•rho•sis]

• A chronic disease of the liver characterized by the replacement of normal tissue with fibrous tissue and the loss of functional liver cells. It can result from alcohol abuse, nutritional deprivation, or infection especially by the hepatitis virus. (noun)
• Chronic interstitial inflammation of any tissue or organ. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The liver cells shrink, the structural framework increases in size at first but subsequently contracts, producing the small, nodular, hard liver, to which the term cirrhosis has been applied."
• "Fatty liver disease, which can in some case progress to fibrosis and cirrhosis, is an increasingly recognized complication of obesity."
• "He was the first to study hyatids exhaustively, and it is to him we owe the name cirrhosis of the liver."