Definition of "phthisis" []

• A disease characterized by the wasting away or atrophy of the body or a part of the body. (noun)
• Tuberculosis of the lungs. No longer in scientific use. (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 term phthisis, consumption, appears first in Greek literature."
• "We were accused and convicted of pulmonary phthisis, which is equivalent to the plague in the prejudices regarding contagion entertained by Spanish physicians."
• "At last I discovered a cure for phthisis, which is also known as Phthoe, a disease for many centuries deemed incurable, and I healed many who are alive to this day as easily as I have cured the"