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Glite Dictionary
pelvic inflammatory disease

pelvic inflammatory disease

1 3.9
A serious infection in a woman's lower belly that causes pain, fever, and unusual vaginal discharge
  • noun
  • /ˈpɛlvɪk ɪnˈflæməˌtɔri dɪˈziːz/
  • Specialized
translation icon : enfermedad inflamatoria pélvica
  • cause pelvic inflammatory disease
  • an infection called pelvic inflammatory disease
  • lead to pelvic inflammatory disease

And if left untreated, STI's can cause very serious health risks such as pelvic inflammatory disease.

Examples

  • Pelvic inflammatory disease.

    A Smile Like Yours (1997)

  • The major cause of tubal damage is pelvic inflammatory disease, usually following a sexually transmitted infection (STI) such as chlamydia trachomatis or gonorrhea.

    Academic text (2015)

  • If left untreated, chlamydia can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, which may cause infertility.

  • Patients must be taught to recognize and promptly report to their physician any symptoms of pelvic inflammatory disease.

  • Some IUD users get a serious pelvic infection called pelvic inflammatory disease.

Synonyms

PID
vspelvic inflammatory disease
  • Specialized
3 6.4

An infection in a woman's lower belly that causes pain, fever and unusual vaginal discharge

is the full formal medical term written out in full rather than abbreviated

Surface Forms

pelvic inflammatory disease singular

Morphology

pelvic + inflammatory + disease

The phrase is fully compositional: a B1 learner who knows 'pelvic' (relating to the pelvis), 'inflammatory' (involving inflammation), and 'disease' (a medical condition) can reasonably infer it refers to a disease involving inflammation in the pelvic area. Although it is a technical medical term, the meaning follows straightforward semantic composition and similar constructions exist cross-linguistically, so the sense is transparent to learners who know the constituent words.

Etymology

Pelvic inflammatory disease is a medical name made of three parts: pelvic (the organs in the lower belly), inflammatory (showing swelling, heat, and pain from an infection), and disease ('an illness'). It literally describes an illness where the organs in the pelvis become infected and painful, which is why it means 'a serious infection of the female pelvic organs'.