Noun

Wikipedia disease (plural diseases)

1. (pathology) An abnormal condition of the body or mind that causes discomfort or dysfunction; distinct from injury insofar as the latter is usually instantaneously acquired.

   The tomato plants had some kind of disease that left their leaves splotchy and fruit withered.

Synonyms

• illness
• malady
• rot
• Wikisaurus:disease

Verb

to disease (third-person singular simple present diseases, present participle diseasing, simple past and past participle diseased)

1. (obsolete) To cause unease; to annoy, irritate.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.ii:

     mote he soft himselfe appease, / And fairely fare on foot, how euer loth; / His double burden did him sore disease.

2. To infect with a disease.

A disease is an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism. It is often construed to be a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. It may be caused by external factors, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by internal disfunctions, such as autoimmune diseases.

In humans, "disease" is often used more broadly to refer to any condition that causes pain, dysfunction, distress, social problems, and/or death to the person afflicted, or similar problems for those in contact with the person. In this broader sense, it sometimes includes injuries, disabilities, disorders, syndromes, infections. Isolated symptoms, deviant behaviors, and atypical variations of structure and function, while in other contexts and for other purposes these may be considered distinguishable categories. A diseased body is quite often not only because of some dysfunction of a particular organ but can also be because of a state of mind of the affected person who is not at ease with a particular state of its body.

Death due to disease is called death by natural causes.