If something is caused by a physical or mental disease, it is pathological, like someone whose need to wash the floor every evening is part of a pathological compulsion for cleanliness, or a growth on someone's elbow that turned out to be a pathological.
Pathological comes from a Greek word, pathologikos, which means “treating of diseases” — pathos means "suffering." Anyone who studies or works with diseases, from their causes to their symptoms, identifies how the disease affects its victims, in other words, its pathological effects. Remember that this is a medical distinction. If a person has, for example, obsessive-compulsive disorder, his or her repetitive actions are pathological.
1 |
adj |
of or relating to the practice of pathology
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2 |
adj |
caused by or evidencing a mentally disturbed condition
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