Comorbid

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /kəʊˈmɔː(ɹ).bɪd/

Definitions

1. A situation where a patient is diagnosed with multiple health conditions that coexist and may interact with one another
2. Describes the occurrence of two or more medical disorders in one individual at the same time
3. Refers to a state where various health issues exist simultaneously within a patient

Etymology: "Comorbid" is a medical term built from two parts that were each borrowed into English long before it was coined. The "co-" comes from Latin "con-", meaning "together" or "with", and "morbid" comes from Latin "morbidus", meaning "diseased" or "sickly". Latin "morbidus" was itself formed from "morbus", "disease", with the adjective-forming suffix "-idus". The surprising twist is that "morbid" once meant nothing like gloomy or gruesome. In English it originally meant "diseased" or "pertaining to disease", and only later drifted toward its current sense of an unhealthy fixation on death and decay. "Comorbid" keeps the older meaning intact, which is why a clinician can say a patient has two conditions occurring together without any suggestion of morbid preoccupation.

Synonyms: co-occurring, associated