Search the Dictionary

Causing waste; also, undergoing waste; diminishing; as, a wasting disease; a wasting fortune. Wasting palsy (Med.), progressive muscular atrophy. See under Progressive.

Act of wasting away; a consuming; extinction. [Obs.] Sir T. Browne.

A wasting away from want of nourishment; diminution in bulk or slow emaciation of the body or of any part. Milton.

A processive wasting or melting away of the solid parts of the animal system with copious excretions of liquids by one or more passages. [Obs.]

A progressive wasting away of the body; esp., that form of wasting, attendant upon pulmonary phthisis and associated with cough, spitting of blood, hectic fever, etc.; pulmonary phthisis; -- called also pulmonary consumption. Consumption of the bowels (Med.), inflammation and ulceration of the intestines from tubercula…

pertaining to consumption; having the quality of consuming, or dissipating; destructive; wasting. It [prayer] is not consumptive or our time. Sharp. A long consumptive war. Addison.

Wasting away gradually. Darwin. - Con*ta*bes"cence, n.

Causing, or fitted to cause, pain, grief, or misery. Cruel wars, wasting the earth. Milton. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath for it was cruel. Gen. xlix. 7.

A gradual sinking and wasting away of the physical faculties; any wasting disease, esp. pulmonary consumption; as, to die of a decline. Dunglison.

A gradual wearing down or wasting, as of rocks and banks, by the action of water, fro

y of the disease, anæsthesia of the skin is a prominent symptom. In addition there may be wasting of the muscles, falling out of the hair and nails, and distortion of the hands and feet with destruction of the bones and joints. It is incurable, and is probably contagious.Mycobacterium leprae, curable in most cases by t…

A wasting of flesh without fever or apparent disease; a kind of consumption; atrophy; phthisis. Pining atrophy, Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence. Milton. Marasmus senilis Etym: [L.], progressive atrophy of the aged.

A wasting away of flesh; decay. [Obs.] Sir T. Browne.

A spending improperly; a wasting. [Obs.] Barrow.

ency; excessive abuse; wanton mischief; gross injury. Chaucer. He wrought great outrages, wasting all the country. Spenser.

Of or pertaining to phthisis; affected with phthisis; wasting; consumptive.

A wasting or consumption of the tissues. The term was formerly applied to many wasting diseases, but is now usually restricted to pulmonary phthisis, or consumption. See Consumption. Fibroid phthisis. See under Fibroid.

Languishing; drooping; wasting away, as with longing.

A wasting away; a gradual losing of flesh by disease.

Withering, or wasting away.