arthritis

What it means

1. countableuncountableInflammation of a joint or joints causing pain and/or disability, swelling and stiffness, and due to various causes such as infection, trauma, degenerative changes or metabolic disorders: any of several disease entities.

   The suppurating osteo-myelitis and arthritis did not assume a form sufficiently putrid to cause purulent infection; the patient also escaped hecticity;

   1878, L[éon Athanese] Gosselin, “I. Hyperostosis of Right Femur. II. Necrosis of Left Tibia.”, in Lewis A. Stimson, transl., Clinical Lectures on Surgery, Delivered at the Hospital of La Charité, Philadelphia, Pa.: Henry C. Lea, part I (Surgical Diseases of Youth), page 42

   2 more examples

   She identified the dry grasp and the finger joints (both the Simpsons were dry-handed, and in the early stages of arthritis, so Dr Simpson had diagnosed).

   2012, Patrick White, The Cockatoos: Shorter Novels and Stories, →ISBN

   Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA), often referred to by doctors today as juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), is a type of arthritis that causes joint inflammation and stiffness for more than six weeks in a child aged 16 or younger. It affects approximately 50,000 children in the United States. Inflammation causes redness, swelling, warmth, and soreness in the joints, although many children with JRA do not complain of joint pain.

   2024 September 6, David Zelman, “Understanding Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis -- the Basics”, in WebMD

In a sentence

The suppurating osteo-myelitis and arthritis did not assume a form sufficiently putrid to cause purulent infection; the patient also escaped hecticity;

1878, L[éon Athanese] Gosselin, “I. Hyperostosis of Right Femur. II. Necrosis of Left Tibia.”, in Lewis A. Stimson, transl., Clinical Lectures on Surgery, Delivered at the Hospital of La Charité, Philadelphia, Pa.: Henry C. Lea, part I (Surgical Diseases of Youth), page 42

Where it comes from

1. Ancient Greekἀρθρῖτις“joint-disease, gout”
2. Latinarthrītis
3. Englisharthritis

From Latin arthrītis, from Ancient Greek ἀρθρῖτις (arthrîtis, “joint-disease, gout”), from ἄρθρον (árthron, “a joint”). By surface analysis, arthr- + -itis.