Petechia

//pɪˈtiːkɪə// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A small spot, especially on an organ, caused by bleeding underneath the skin.

    "It is scurvy. All my authorities agree – weakness, diffused muscular pain, petechia, tender gums, ill breath – and M’Alister has no doubt of it."

  2. 2
    a minute red or purple spot on the surface of the skin as the result of tiny hemorrhages of blood vessels in the skin (as in typhoid fever) wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
abscessblebblisterboilbunioncanker

Example

More examples

"It is scurvy. All my authorities agree – weakness, diffused muscular pain, petechia, tender gums, ill breath – and M’Alister has no doubt of it."

Etymology

Learned borrowing from New Latin petechia, from Italian petecchie (“skin eruptions”, plural), probably from a popular Latin diminutive of petigo (“scab, eruption”) (from impetīgo).

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