congenital disorder
- noun
- /kənˈdʒɛnɪtəl dɪsˈɔrdər/
- Specialized
- Amusia is a congenital disorder; people with the condition have a hard time detecting the direction of pitch changes and can't tell some notes apart.
Examples
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Mitral valve prolapse is believed to be a congenital disorder.
Academic text (2007) -
Hearing loss is more likely in children with Down's syndrome and other congenital disorders that affect the shape of the face and ear canal, such as Williams and Turner's syndromes.
Academic text (2014) -
In 2009, I had come out, so to speak, in a national women's magazine, writing about Klippel-Trenaunay Syndrome (K-T), the rare congenital disorder that deforms my body.
Blog text (21) -
Not everyone gets lucky with medical bills due to being dealt a hard hand regarding congenital defects, systemic diseases, and congenital disorders, but for the most part, people have a fighting chance with their teeth (with rare congenital issues being the exception).
Blog text (19) -
He was born with arthrogryposis, a congenital disorder that affects joint flexibility.
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Down syndrome is a congenital disorder characterized by a chromosomal abnormality.
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Premature births can lead to various congenital disorders that impact a child's development.
Synonyms
A health problem a baby has when they are born
A problem in the body or how it works that is present at birth
A health problem present when a baby is born
A body or organ problem present when a baby is born
A health problem in the body or the way it works that is present when a baby is born
How Severe
- Specialized
- Specialized
- Specialized
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a medical condition present from birth' is directly and compositionally derived from 'congenital' (present at birth) + 'disorder' (a medical/functional condition). This is a regular adjective+noun combination following standard English compounding patterns and has clear equivalents in many languages, so a learner who knows both constituents can reliably infer the MWE meaning. Therefore it is immediately comprehensible rather than idiomatic or metaphorical.
Etymology
Congenital disorder comes from old words where congenital means 'born with' and disorder means 'a problem'. So a congenital disorder is a health problem a baby has when they are born, which is why it means 'present at birth'.