Aetiology
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The establishment of a cause, origin, or reason for something. countable, uncountable
"I do not know where the idea first arose of enlisting internal (subjective) excitations of the sensory organs as well as external sensory stimuli; but it is in fact done in all the more recent accounts of the aetiology of dreams [translating Traumätiologie]."
- 2 the philosophical study of causation wordnet
- 3 The study of causes or causation. countable, uncountable
- 4 the cause of a disease wordnet
- 5 The study or investigation of the causes of disease; a scientific explanation for the origin of a disease. uncountable
Show 1 more definition
- 6 A cause of disease or of any particular case of a disease (but see pathology § Usage notes). countable
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"I do not know where the idea first arose of enlisting internal (subjective) excitations of the sensory organs as well as external sensory stimuli; but it is in fact done in all the more recent accounts of the aetiology of dreams [translating Traumätiologie]."
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Latin aetiologia, from Ancient Greek αἰτιολογία (aitiología), from αἰτία (aitía, “cause”). By surface analysis, aetio- + -logy; Doublet of aetiologia.
More for "aetiology"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.