noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A wasting of body tissues, of either genetic origin or due to inadequate or defective nutrition. countable, uncountable
2. 2
   any degenerative disorder resulting from inadequate or faulty nutrition wordnet
3. 3
   any of several hereditary diseases of the muscular system characterized by weakness and wasting of skeletal muscles wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

muscular dystrophymuscular dystrophy

Example

More examples

"Tom was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy in 2013."

Etymology

From dys- + -trophy, literally “bad growth”, as in the opposite of growth.

Related phrases

Duchenne muscular dystrophycorneal dystrophyepithelial dystrophymuscular dystrophymyotonic dystrophyreflex sympathetic dystrophytwenty-nail dystrophy

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