petit mal epilepsy
- noun
- /ˌpəˌtiː ˈmɑːl ˌɛpɪˈlɛpsi/
- Archaic
:
epilepsia de ausencia
- Children with petit mal epilepsy may suddenly stop speaking or staring blankly for a few seconds.
Examples
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The doctor diagnosed her with petit mal epilepsy after several short episodes of unresponsiveness.
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Many children with petit mal epilepsy outgrow the condition.
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Effective treatment can help control the symptoms of petit mal epilepsy.
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She was diagnosed with petit mal epilepsy at a young age.
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Children with petit mal epilepsy may suddenly stop moving and look blank for a few seconds during an absence seizure.
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The doctor explained that petit mal epilepsy involves brief moments of lost awareness without convulsions.
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After experiencing several absence seizures, she was confirmed to have petit mal epilepsy by her neurologist.
Synonyms
46
4.9
A brain condition that causes sudden seizures or brief loss of awareness
Short episodes of lost awareness without strong body shaking
Antonyms
- Specialized
Severe seizures that make a person lose consciousness and have strong body jerks
How Severe
- Specialized
1
9.3
- Specialized
- Archaic
Surface Forms
Morphology
This is a conventional medical borrowing from French ('petit mal') where the literal parts ('petit' = small, 'mal' unclear) do not transparently convey the clinical sense of brief, non-convulsive absence seizures; while 'epilepsy' signals a seizure disorder, it does not specify this particular syndrome. Because the compound is a specialized, lexicalized term whose meaning is not predictable from the surface constituents, a B1 learner who knows the individual words would not reliably infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
Petit mal epilepsy comes from French words: petit means 'small' and mal means 'illness'. Doctors used this name because the seizures are very brief and often just a short blank stare, so the name explains why it refers to brief, mild seizures called 'absence seizures'.