X-disease
//ˈɛks.dɪ.ziz// name
name ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Proper Noun
- 1 Any of various diseases of plants or animals whose origin was at first a mystery, especially:; Hyperkeratosis in cattle.
"In making a diagnosis of X-disease, one must consider the insidious onset, slow course, and number of animals affected."
- 2 Any of various diseases of plants or animals whose origin was at first a mystery, especially:; A disease of stone fruits caused by a form of mycoplasma.
"Transmission of X-disease was more erratic with peach than with chokecherry buds, possibly because only low titers of the X-disease mycoplasma-like organisms (MLO) are present in infected peach trees during most of the year."
Example
More examples"In making a diagnosis of X-disease, one must consider the insidious onset, slow course, and number of animals affected."
Etymology
From the convention of using "X" as a variable to stand for something unknown.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.