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Glite Dictionary
🦠 Related to tuberculosis 🦴 With a small bump 🤒 A tuberculosis patient
tubercular

tubercular

9.9
A person who has tuberculosis, usually in the lungs
  • noun
  • /tjuːˈbɜːrkjələr/
  • Archaic
translation icon : tuberculoso
  • Only sensitive people, Sontag writes, were believed to contract consumption: "the melancholy character—or the tubercular—was a superior one: sensitive, creative, a being apart" (32).

Examples

  • During the early 20th century, many public health officials advocated for the segregated care of the tubercular in sanatoriums.

  • Outreach programs were established to provide support and resources for the tubercular living in urban areas.

  • The increasing awareness about the rights of the tubercular has led to improved healthcare policies.

Synonyms

lunger
vstubercular
  • Archaic
1 9.9

A person with a serious lung disease called tuberculosis, used especially in the past

is the neutral medical term without historical tone
consumptive
vstubercular
  • Archaic
9.9

A person who has tuberculosis of the lungs

is the plain medical designation rather than a literary label

Surface Forms

tubercular singular
tuberculars plural

Morphology

tubercular = tubercle (opaque) = tuber + cular

The term refers to a person with tuberculosis, which is not directly derivable from the base word 'tubercle'.

Etymology

Tubercular comes from the Latin tuberculum, meaning 'small lump', and from the disease name tuberculosis, which causes 'tubercles' in the lungs. A helpful way to remember the noun tubercular is that it named a person suffering from that disease — a person affected by tuberculosis.