malady

Etymology

From Middle English maladie, from Old French maladie (“sickness, illness, disease”), from malade (“ill, sick”), from Latin male habitus (“ill-kept, not in good condition”), 1st century AD. See also malice and habit.

Pronunciation

enPR: măl'ə-dē, IPA^(key): /ˈmæl.ə.di/
Audio (US): (file)

Noun

malady (plural maladies)

Any ailment or disease of the body; especially, a lingering or deep-seated disorder.
- 1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet CXVIII”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC:
  As, to prevent our maladies unseen, / We sicken to shun sickness when we purge.
- a. 1812, Joseph Stevens Buckminster, It is Good for Me, that I have been Afflicted (sermon)
  The maladies of the body may prove medicines of the mind.
A moral or mental defect or disorder.
- 1700, [John] Dryden, “Palamon and Arcite”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
  Love's a malady without a cure.

Synonyms

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ailment, disease, disorder, distemper, illness, sickness

Derived terms

maladious

Translations

a disease, illness, or other health disorder

Albanian: sëmundje (sq)
Arabic: please add this translation if you can
Bikol Central: hilang (bcl)
Bulgarian: болест (bg) f (bolest), разстройство (bg) n (razstrojstvo)
Cherokee: ᎥᏳᎩ (vyugi)
Chinese:
Mandarin: 疾病 (zh) (jíbìng)
Czech: nemoc (cs) f, choroba (cs) f
Esperanto: malsano (eo)
Finnish: sairaus (fi), tauti (fi)
French: maladie (fr) f
German: Krankheit (de) f, Übel (de) n
Hindi: रोग (hi) m (rog)
Italian: malattia (it) f
Japanese: please add this translation if you can
Latin: morbus (la)
Malayalam: അസുഖം (ml) (asukhaṁ)
Norwegian:
Bokmål: sykdom (no) m, sjukdom (no) m

Nynorsk: sjukdom m
Ottoman Turkish: خسته‌لق (hastalık), علت (ʼillet), مرض (maraz)
Plautdietsch: Krankheit f
Portuguese: mal (pt)
Russian: боле́знь (ru) f (boléznʹ), заболева́ние (ru) n (zabolevánije), расстро́йство (ru) n (rasstrójstvo), неду́г (ru) m (nedúg)
Sicilian: malatìa (scn) f, morbu m, mali (scn) m
Spanish: mal (es) m, achaque (es) m, maleza (es) f, aje (es) m, aj (es) m (dated), ax (es) m (ash) (dated), dolencia (es) f
Swedish: sjukdom (sv) c
Tocharian B: teki

moral or mental disorder

Czech: nešvar (cs) m, neduh (cs) m

References

“malady”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
Douglas Harper (2001–2025), “malady”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.