What does pathology mean?
Pathology is the branch of medicine that studies the causes, development, and nature of disease. In clinical use, the word also names an abnormal condition or process—the pathological changes that make up an illness or disorder. Because these changes can be examined in tissue, blood, or other specimens, pathologists work in laboratories and hospital departments, identifying disease and helping guide diagnosis. In the social sciences, pathology has a broader figurative use for dysfunction in a culture, institution, or social system; this can be illuminating, but applying it to people may sound stigmatizing or moralizing. The term is formal and technical rather than everyday, and it should not be confused with physiology, which concerns normal body functions, or psychology, which concerns the mind and behavior. Its Greek foundations combine the ideas of suffering or disease with systematic study, giving the word both medical precision and metaphorical reach.
nounPathology is the branch of medicine concerned with the causes, development, and nature of disease. By extension, it refers to an abnormal bodily or biological condition or process constituting a disease or disorder.
- The branch of medicine concerned with the causes, development, and nature of disease.
- An abnormal bodily or biological condition or process constituting a disease or disorder.
- A condition or dysfunction regarded as abnormal within a culture, institution, or social system.
"The biopsy results were sent to pathology for microscopic examination."
"The biopsy results were sent to pathology for microscopic examination."
"The study treated housing segregation as a social pathology rather than as an isolated policy failure."
Used for distinct abnormal conditions or processes, especially in medicine and biology.
"The scan revealed several distinct pathologies requiring further investigation."
Built from Greek elements meaning “suffering or disease” and “study,” pathology is the discipline devoted to understanding what has gone wrong.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does pathology come from?
Pathology entered English in the late sixteenth century through the Modern Latin form pathology, borrowed from Greek pathologia, “study of disease.” The Greek formation combines pathos, “suffering, disease,” with -logia, “study.” The same disease-related combining form underlies pathogen, pathogenic, and pathogenesis, while pathos preserves a cognate associated with suffering or feeling.
Related word forms
How pathology is actually used
The word is formal and technical in medicine and the biological sciences. Its social or metaphorical use can be analytically useful, but describing people or groups as pathological may sound stigmatizing or moralizing. It is not interchangeable with physiology or psychology.
Easily confused with pathology
Pathology studies disease and abnormal changes in the body, whereas physiology studies the normal functions of living organisms and their organs.
Psychology studies the mind and behavior, while pathology primarily studies disease and abnormal biological processes.