Definition of "molluscum" []

• Any of various skin diseases in which soft spherical tumors form on the face or other part of the body. (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.

• "According to recent investigations, molluscum epitheliale is to be regarded as a hyperplasia of the rete, the growth probably beginning in the hair-follicles; the so-called molluscum bodies -- peculiar, rounded or ovoidal, sharply-defined, fatty-looking bodies found in microscopical examination of the growth -- are to be viewed as a form of epithelial degeneration."
• "It turned out that 5-year-old Amaya had a condition called molluscum contagiosum."
• "As I focused on their faces and bodies, I could see that many of them were growth stunted and some were microcephalic (small heads due to brain damage, malnutrition, infection); their faces were covered with molluscum contagiosum (virally mediated warts) and impetigo."