Sclerosis

//skləˈɹəʊsɪs// noun

noun ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The abnormal hardening of body tissues, such as an artery; the appearance of hardenings, indurations, lesions, nodules. countable, uncountable

    "The “Euphoria” and “Grey’s Anatomy” actor announced on Thursday that he has been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease."

  2. 2
    any pathological hardening or thickening of tissue wordnet
  3. 3
    Inability to create change or excessive resistance to change. countable, uncountable

    "Suppressing dissent dooms the society to sclerosis, decline and collapse."

Synonyms

All synonyms
indurationabscessagueanemiaanginaangina pectoris

Example

More examples

"Dr. Hawking was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis while at Oxford."

Etymology

From Ancient Greek σκλήρωσις (sklḗrōsis, “hardening”), from σκληρόω (sklēróō, “to harden”), from σκληρός (sklērós, “hard”); by surface analysis, sclero- + -osis.

Related phrases

amyotrophic lateral sclerosisdisseminated sclerosislateral sclerosismultiple cerebral sclerosismultiple sclerosissystemic sclerosistuberous sclerosis

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