Geriatrics

noun

noun ·4 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The branch of medicine that focuses on health promotion and the prevention and treatment of disease and disability in later life. The term itself can be distinguished from gerontology, which is the study of the aging process itself. uncountable
  2. 2
    plural of geriatric form-of, plural
  3. 3
    the branch of medical science that deals with diseases and problems specific to old people wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
geriatrygerontologymedicine

Etymology

From Ancient Greek γῆρας (gêras, “old age”) (see γέρων (gérōn)) + ἰατρός (iatrós, “physician”); coined in English in 1909 by Ignatz L. Nascher in the New York Medical Journal on the model of pediatrics; correct formation would be gerontiatrics. Compare gerontology.

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