PATHOLOGY

noun (plural -gies) Etymology: New Latin pathologia & Middle French pathologie, from Greek pathologia study of the emotions, from path- + -logia -logy Date: 1611 the study of the essential nature of diseases and especially of the structural and functional changes produced by them, something abnormal:, the structural and functional deviations from the normal that constitute disease or characterize a particular disease, deviation from propriety or from an assumed normal state of something nonliving or nonmaterial, deviation giving rise to social ills