Dysouria

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Pain, burning or difficulty experienced when passing urine, often a sign of infection or irritation of the urinary tract
2. A medical condition in which emptying the bladder causes discomfort, typically linked to infection or inflammation in the urinary system
3. Uncomfortable or laboured urination, a symptom commonly associated with a urinary tract infection or another irritation of the bladder or urethra

Etymology: Dysuria is a medical coinage, built from Greek rather than handed down from antiquity. Its first element, "dys-", is the Greek prefix meaning "bad" or "difficult," and the second, "-uria," comes from Greek "ouron," meaning "urine," so the literal sense is "difficult urination." Physicians used Greek roots like these to name conditions in a standardised technical vocabulary, and the classical authors who wrote in Greek had no such word. The pattern is one familiar from many medical terms. "Dys-" appears in dyspepsia (difficult digestion) and dyslexia (difficulty with words), and "-uria" appears in words for other urinary states, such as polyuria, meaning excessive urine production. Dysuria therefore fits into a whole family of constructed terms that share the same building blocks.