dyscrasia means imbalance of the four bodily humors (blood, black and yellow bile, phlegm) that was thought to cause disease. It carries an Arena rating of 1376, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, dyscrasia ranks #481 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #798 of 17,138 for Most Incisive Words, #2,039 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #2,961 of 17,132 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound.
dyscrasia is pronounced /dɪsˈkɹeɪzɪə/.
Why “dyscrasia” is a great word
A pathological imbalance or derangement in the constitution of the body, particularly of the blood, originally denoting a disproportion among the four humors. From the Ancient Greek δυσ- (dys-, "bad, difficult") and κρᾶσις (krâsis, "mixture, blending"), borrowed into English via Medieval or Late Latin dyscrāsia and first attested in Middle English (discracie, discrasie) c. 1350–1400. Unlike eucrasia, the elusive ideal of perfect internal harmony, or the broad modern catch-all disease, dyscrasia evokes a precise, antique pathology—a systemic failure of proportion. It is the yellowed pallor of a patient in a medieval manuscript, the bitter taste in a fevered mouth, and the heavy lethargy of a humoral rebellion; an ancient diagnosis for the perennial sense that the body’s vital recipe has, in its dark chambers, quietly gone sour.
Etymology
Borrowed from Ancient Greek δυσκρασία (duskrasía, “bad mixture”).
noun
- Imbalance of the four bodily humors (blood, black and yellow bile, phlegm) that was thought to cause disease.
- Any bodily disorder, especially regarding the blood.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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