Idiopathic

//ˌɪdioʊˈpæθɪk// adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of, relating to, or designating a disease or condition having no known cause. not-comparable

    "So when I was diagnosed with a fairly difficult-to-treat disease called idiopathic angioedema and chronic urticaria (a fancy way of saying we don’t know why you swell and hey, enjoy the 24/7 hives) six months ago, I wasn't quite sure how to cope."

Adjective
  1. 1
    (of diseases) arising from an unknown cause wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
agnogeniccryptogenicessentialidiogeneticprimary

Example

More examples

"I suffer from idiopathic hypersomnia."

Etymology

From idio- + -pathic. First appears c. 1669, in the publications of William Simpson.

Related phrases

diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosisidiopathic hypersomniaidiopathic intracranial hypertensionidiopathic postprandial syndrome

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