Word of the Day: Phthisis

There are many songs which revolve around the theme of 'if this is love, then...'

But in my current morbid pathological state of unwellness, they all remind me of the WotD, which is roughly pronounced 'if this is' but without the initial short 'i' sound.

It's a rather awful word, descending into Greek via some ancient proto-European language root meaning 'to perish or be destroyed'. In Greek, phthisis means 'wasting away'. A closer look at the word in its daily usage shows that it refers to the wasting away of organs such as the lungs and eyes. Not a pleasant thought at all, especially when you suspect you are coughing your lungs up.

It gets worse. It sometimes means 'the wasting of everything else away that accompanies the perishing of your key organs'. Urk. Then again, the medical fraternity tends to focus on eyes and lungs only. Maybe it's because they are organs susceptible to drying out and shrinking. Heh, what a thought.

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Note: If you're wondering where to go for stuff on words, two of my favourite quick-and-dirty sites are WordNet and the OED (no, not that OED!)