What does "peritonitis" mean?

Inflammation of the peritoneum, especially when caused by an infectious organism introduced into the abdominal cavity.

Peritonitis

Q: What is a synonym for "peritonitis"?

Common synonyms include: abdominal hernia, adenoiditis, adrenitis, appendicitis, arteritis, arthritis.

noun

noun ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun

1
Inflammation of the peritoneum, especially when caused by an infectious organism introduced into the abdominal cavity. countable, uncountable
"Intraperitoneal injections of a strong solution produce fibrohemorrhagic peritonitis of varying intensity, according to the strength of the solution; while intraperitoneal injections of small quantities of a diluted solution of formalin induce a chronic peritonitis with great connective tissue proliferation, and a striking eosinophilia."
2
inflammation of the peritoneum wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

abdominal hernia adenoiditis adrenitis appendicitis arteritis arthritis

Example

More examples

"If the Bacterium coli normal to the intestine escapes into the peritoneal cavity, or passes into the bladder, a severe peritonitis or cystitis, respectively, is apt to result."

Etymology

From peritoneum + -itis.

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