Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🦠 Related to syphilis 🤒 A person with syphilis
syphilitic

syphilitic

3 9.3
Relating to or caused by syphilis
  • adjective
  • /ˌsɪfɪˈlɪtɪk/
  • Specialized
translation icon : sifilítico
  • We soon learn that this is an old friend "whose brain is slowly curdling due to a syphilitic infection," who wants Williams to accompany him to New York City, which Bill agrees to do.

And I had all of this like syphilitic stuff down my face.

Examples

  • Applied to a syphilitic liver, Levaditi stain, a silver nitrate stain, darkens the Treponema pallidum spirochetes that cause the disease.

    Academic text (2010)

  • If he was indeed suffering from syphilitic symptoms such as burning joint pain and oozing ulcerations, then this portrait could represent a sort of purgative catharsis.

    Academic text (2004)

  • Note the black spots on their faces that cover syphilitic sores.

  • The Htel Dieu expelled its syphilitic patients in 1496, and, after relenting briefly, did so again in 1508 (Allen, 2000).

    Academic text (2014)

  • The doctor explained that the patient's symptoms were due to a syphilitic infection.

  • In the early stages, a syphilitic sore may appear on the genital area.

  • Historical records often show the effects of syphilitic diseases on people's health.

Surface Forms

syphilitic positive

Morphology

syphilitic = syphilis (transparent) = syphilis + tic

Standard adjectival formation from the disease name 'syphilis' (meaning 'relating to or affected by syphilis').

Etymology

Syphilitic comes from the disease name syphilis plus the suffix -itic, which we use in words like arthritic to mean 'relating to' or 'affected by' a condition. So syphilitic means 'relating to' or 'infected with' syphilis.