chronic
/ˈkrɒnɪk
/adjective
1(Of an illness) persisting for a long time or constantly recurring: chronic bronchitis...Often contrasted with acute.
- People with chronic respiratory or cardiovascular illness or immune system diseases are also more susceptible than others to pollutants.
- The clinical infection is characterized by chronic fever and hepatosplenomegaly.
- They come seeking help for work-related stress, irregular sleeping hours, unhealthy food habits and chronic fatigue.
Synonyms
persistent, long-standing, long-term, constantly recurring;
incurable
rare immedicable
1.1(Of a person) having a chronic illness: a chronic asthmatic...
- The nurse or nurse practitioner will be able to see additional patients and follow up with chronic patients, which will free up the physician's time to see more new and complex patients.
- This lifestyle began to go badly wrong from the age of forty-four, when his horse rolled on him in a tournament, crippling one leg and leaving him a chronic invalid.
- In chronic patients, there are more acute phases, more ups and downs.
1.2(Of a problem) long-lasting: the school suffers from chronic overcrowding...
- Because the job requires its workers to be away from home, there is a chronic driver shortage.
- Poor countries face chronic crises so dire that the world's sensibilities have been numbed to them.
- The problem is that there is a chronic need to address poor turnout.
Synonyms
constant, continuing, continual, ceaseless, incessant, unabating, unending, persistent, perennial, long-lasting, lingering;
deep-rooted, deep-seated, ineradicable;
severe, serious, acute, grave, dire
1.3(Of a person) having a bad habit: a chronic liar...
- That Moore is a chronic liar and twister of the truth obviously needs to be publicized as much as possible.
- Mike is a chronic liar, a Peter Pan figure who has trouble paying his bills and facing up to anything that whiffs of adult responsibility.
- How can you end a relationship with a chronic liar?
Synonyms
inveterate, confirmed, hardened, dyed-in-the-wool, incorrigible, habitual;
compulsive, pathological
2British informal Of a very poor quality: the film was absolutely chronic...
- Is it a desire to draw attention away from his poor to chronic domestic policy record?
- The new big noise displayed a chronic lack of professionalism and failed hopelessly to live up to his billing.
Derivatives
chronicity
/ noun ...- With this patient then, the issues of chronicity, pervasiveness, ‘level of distress’, etc. would calibrate the application of any specific technique.
- A complete blood cell count with differential is sometimes useful to assess the illness further, in terms of detecting the severity of the infection, presence of associated conditions, and chronicity of infection.
- What I would like to see more research on is the chronicity of these illnesses.
Origin
Late Middle English: from French chronique, via Latin from Greek khronikos 'of time', from khronos 'time'.
Words beginning chron- have something to do with time: the root being Greek khronos ‘time’. A chronic illness is one that persists for a long time. In informal British English the word can also mean ‘of very poor quality’, as in ‘the film was chronic’, a sense developing from the idea of unending tedium. See also anachronism, crony
Rhymes
- polyblastic
- polyblend
- polybranchiate
- polybrominated
- polybrominated biphenyl
- polybutadiene
- polybutylene
- polycarbonate
- polycarboxylate
- polycarboxylic
- polycarpellary
- polycarpic
- polycarpous
- Polycarp, St
- polycaryocyte
- polycation
- polycationic
- polycellular
- polycentral
- polycentric
- polycentricity
- polycentrism
- polycentrist
- polycephalic
- polycephalous