symptom

Meanings

1. A physical or mental sign of an illness.
2. A sign that something else is wrong, in a system or a situation.

Example sentences

• "A sore throat is a common symptom of a cold."

  Level B1, Meaning 1

• "The symptoms disappeared after two days."

  Level B1, Meaning 1

• "Falling attendance is a symptom of a bigger problem."

  Level B2, Meaning 2

• "Tell your doctor when the symptoms began."

  Level B1, Meaning 1

Synonyms and antonyms

Look-alikes and common mistakes

• sign : In medicine a sign is something a doctor can see, such as a rash. A symptom is something the patient feels, such as pain.
• syndrome : A syndrome is a group of symptoms that happen together. A symptom is a single sign.

Word family and forms

Forms: symptoms

Word partners

Words and phrases that often go with "symptom".

• early symptoms
• show symptoms
• flu symptoms
• relieve the symptoms
• a symptom of stress
• mild symptoms

Origin

Symptom comes from Greek symptoma, meaning that which happens together with something, an occurrence. It is built from sym-, together, and the Greek verb piptein, to fall, so a symptom is something that falls together with an illness. It reached English in the late 1300s through Late Latin.

Checked against: Wiktionary, the free dictionary, Dictionary.com.

How to remember it

The patient reports the symptom, and the doctor looks for the cause.

Test yourself

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