- of pathology; of or concerned with diseases
- due to or involving disease
- governed by a compulsion; compulsive: a pathological liar
Also path·o·log′ic
adjective
The definition of pathological is someone obsessive or something done obsessively, or it is something related to a disease.
An example of something that would be described as pathological is pathological gambling which is gambling obsessively until you lose your entire life savings.
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pathological
Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fifth Edition Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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pathological
also path·o·log·ic
adjective
- Of or relating to pathology.
- Relating to or caused by disease.
- Of, relating to, or manifesting behavior that is habitual, maladaptive, and compulsive: a pathological liar.
Related Forms:
- path′o·log′i·cal·ly
adverb
THE AMERICAN HERITAGE® DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, FIFTH EDITION by the Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries. Copyright © 2016, 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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Adjective
(comparative more pathological, superlative most pathological)
- (medicine) Pertaining to pathology.
- (medicine) Relating to, amounting to, causing, or caused by a physical or mental disorder.
- (mathematics) Having properties which are counterintuitive or difficult to handle.
- (computer science) Having properties that cause unusually bad behaviour, especially regarding correctness or performance.
Origin
- pathology +"Ž -ical
English Wiktionary. Available under CC-BY-SA license.
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"Pathological." YourDictionary. LoveToKnow. www.yourdictionary.com/pathologicaL.
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pathological - Medical Definition
also pathologic (-ĭk)
adj.
- Of or relating to pathology.
- Relating to or caused by disease.
- Of, relating to, or manifesting behavior that is habitual, maladaptive, and compulsive: a pathological liar.
Related Forms:
- path′o·log′i·cal·ly
adv.
The American Heritage Dictionary of Medicine © 2018 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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"Pathological." YourDictionary. LoveToKnow. www.yourdictionary.com/pathologicaL.
APA Style
Pathological. (n.d.). In YourDictionary. Retrieved from https://www.yourdictionary.com/pathologicaL
Sentence Examples
- In certain pathological conditions an excessive formation and discharge of such material is usually associated with catarrhal changes in the epithelium.
- Tsetse-flies are of great economic and pathological importance as the disseminators of tsetse-fly disease (nagana) and sleeping sickness.
- In 1861 an alleged "centre" of speech was detected, by a combination of clinical and pathological researches, by Paul Broca (1824-1880).
- In England his pathological work won general recognition.
- Moreover, we have good reasons for inferring that different constellations of external causes may determine whether the internal physiological disturbances induced by a given agent shall lead to pathological and dangerous variations, or to changes which may be harmless or even advantageous to the plant concerned.
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