Diagnostic

//daɪ.əɡˈnɒs.tɪk// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Any technique used in medical diagnosis.
  2. 2
    Any tool or technique used to find the root of a problem.
  3. 3
    That by which anything is known; a symptom.
Adjective
  1. 1
    Of, or relating to diagnosis.
  2. 2
    Characteristic of a particular disease.
  3. 3
    Serving to indicate or specify a particular item or thing within a group of similar things.

    "Each language has its own distinct phonological qualities which a counter can tap into with effect. It is not necessarily specific phonemes (though these can sometimes be diagnostic), but rather the frequency and phonotactic distribution of each disparate set of phonemes that go together in the speech stream in certain recognisable ways."

  4. 4
    Intended to assess a student's preexisting knowledge on the material being taught.

    "A diagnostic assessment"

  5. 5
    (of a skeletal or genetic feature) Characteristic of a particular taxon or clade.
Adjective
  1. 1
    characteristic or indicative of a disease wordnet
  2. 2
    concerned with diagnosis; used for furthering diagnosis wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
symptomaticcharacteristiccharacterizingconnotativeconstructionalconstructive

Example

More examples

"The sphygmomanometer is an important diagnostic instrument."

Etymology

From Ancient Greek διαγνωστικός (diagnōstikós), adjective from διαγιγνώσκειν (diagignṓskein, “to distinguish, diagnose”).

Related phrases

diagnostic overshadowingself-diagnostic

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.