bronchitis
Pluralbronchitises (some meanings), bronchitides (some meanings)
- 1Inflammation of the bronchi of the lungs, which causes the cilia of the bronchial cells to stop working.
The patient was diagnosed with bronchitis after weeks of a persistent cough and chest congestion.
Chronic bronchitis often develops in people who have smoked heavily for many years.
Note
The name is built from Greek: brónkhos, "windpipe", plus -itis, the ending that names an inflammation. The same pattern gives bronchiolitis, its natural partner for the smaller airways. As a mass noun it usually takes no article (she has bronchitis), unlike the countable use. It is not limited to human medicine either: "Single Pathogen Challenge with Agents of the Bovine Respiratory Disease" (2015) describes necrotizing bronchitis in infected steers.
- 2A specific occurrence, an affected patient, or a particular type of inflammation of the bronchi.
The pediatrician noted that this was the child's second bronchitis of the year.
Acute and chronic bronchitis differ in their duration and underlying cause.
Note
Once the word can be counted, it needs a plural, and it has two. Bronchitises follows the ordinary English pattern, while bronchitides follows the classical model of the -itis ending behind the uncountable illness. Both are correct, so the choice is one of tone: the -ides form reads as learned and clinical. A phrase such as two cases of bronchitis avoids the choice altogether.
Practice
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Origin
This word comes from Late Latin "bronchus," which came from Ancient Greek "brónkhos" meaning "windpipe," combined with the suffix "-itis" (indicating inflammation).