Leukosis

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A viral disease predominantly found in birds, marked by the overproduction of atypical white blood cells
2. A disease caused by a virus that leads to excessive proliferation of abnormal white blood cells especially in bird species
3. An infectious condition in birds characterized by uncontrolled increase of irregular white blood cells due to viral infection

Etymology: "Leukosis" is built from two Greek-derived pieces: "leuko-", from Greek "leukos" meaning "white", and "-osis", a suffix from Greek used to form nouns of condition or disease, as in "neurosis" or "tuberculosis". Put together, the name simply describes a disease characterised by white (here, white blood cell) overgrowth. The word is a modern scientific coinage rather than an ancient one. Ancient Greek physicians had no concept of a viral blood cancer, so the term was assembled from classical building blocks by later medical writers who needed a precise label for the condition. The "leuko-" element shows up in a whole family of medical terms, including "leukocyte" for a white blood cell and "leukemia" for the blood cancer in mammals, which shares the same Greek root.

Synonyms: leukemia, blood cancer