noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   wasting away of infants in long-term institutional care, caused by lack of contact with caregivers uncountable
2. 2
   A spoiled or degenerate condition of the body, due to long confinement in a hospital, or the morbid condition of the atmosphere of a hospital. dated, uncountable

Etymology

From hospital + -ism.

Related phrases

waste away

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