Encephalitis

//ɛnˌsɛfəˈlaɪtɪs// noun

noun ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Inflammation of the brain. countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    inflammation of the brain usually caused by a virus; symptoms include headache and neck pain and drowsiness and nausea and fever (‘phrenitis’ is no longer in scientific use) wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
cephalitisphrenitisadenoiditisadrenitisappendicitisarteritis

Example

More examples

"Complications from measles such as pneumonia or encephalitis, a swelling of the brain, can be fatal or lead to permanent disability. That’s why doctors urge parents to get their children vaccinated."

Etymology

From encephal- + -itis.

Related phrases

Australian encephalitisCree encephalitisJapanese encephalitisMurray Valley encephalitisPowassan encephalitisRussian encephalitisRussian spring-summer encephalitisRussian spring–summer encephalitisVenezuelan equine encephalitisWest Nile encephalitiseastern equine encephalitisencephalitis lethargica

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