rachitic
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɹəˈkɪtɪk/
ipa: /ɹæ-/
ipa: /ɹəˈkɪtɪk/
ipa: [-ɾɪk]
rhymes: -ɪtɪk
Forms: form: more rachitic
form: most rachitic
Etymology: From rachitis (“rickets”) + -ic (suffix forming adjectives from nouns with the sense ‘of or pertaining to’), possibly modelled after French rachitique or Late Latin rachiticus. Rachitis is an unadapted borrowing from New Latin rachitis, used by the British physician Francis Glisson (1597–1677) to refer to rickets, from Koine Greek ῥαχῖτις (rhakhîtis) (in ῥαχῖτις νόσος (rhakhîtis nósos, “spinal inflammation”, literally “spinal disease”)), the feminine form of ῥαχίτης (rhakhítēs, “in or of the spine, spinal”), from Ancient Greek ῥάχῐς (rhákhĭs, “lower part of the back; (anatomy) backbone, spine”) (probably ultimately Pre-Greek) + -ῖτις (-îtis) (feminine form of -ῑ́της (-ī́tēs, suffix forming nouns with the sense ‘one connected to’)).
Senses: examples: text: Nor was there time to do much more than distribute some sweet to the pallid rachitic children.
ref: 1982, Lawrence Durrell, “Constance, or Solitary Practices”, in The Avignon Quintet, London: Faber & Faber, published 2004, →ISBN, page 761:
text: His companions—now I could see them as well. […] Tiny, nocturnal, twittering, they were like rachitic children, and as one went past me I saw mongoloid features and a bald head.
ref: 1989, Umberto Eco, chapter 113, in William Weaver, transl., Foucault’s Pendulum (A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book), San Diego, Calif.; New York, N.Y.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, →ISBN, page 582:
text: They [the author's grandparents] brought Margot, who was a little more than a year old, back to Cataca with them, […] It was hard for me to get used to the change, because Margot came to the house like a creature from another life, rachitic and wild, and with an impenetrable interior world. When Abigaíl—the mother of Luis Carmelo Correa—saw her she could not understand why my grandparents had assumed the burden of that commitment. "The girl is dying," she said.
ref: 2003, Gabriel García Márquez, chapter 2, in Edith Grossman, transl., Living to Tell the Tale […], New York, N.Y.: Alfred A[braham] Knopf, →ISBN, page 80:
topics: medicine
pathology
sciences
synonyms: rickety
glosses: Of or pertaining to, or affected by, rickets (“a disorder of infancy and early childhood due to a deficiency of vitamin D, causing soft or weak bones”).
examples: text: On Dec. 2, we found ourselves rolling in the roads of pestilential Lagos, our lullaby the sullen distant roar, whilst a dusky white gleam smoking over the deadly bar in the darkening horizon threatened us with a disagreeable landing at the last, the youngest, and the most rachitic of Great Britain's large but now exceedingly neglected family of colonies.
ref: 1864, Richard F[rancis] Burton, “I Do Not Become ‘Fast Friends’ with Lagos”, in A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahome. […], volume I, London: Tinsley Brothers, […], →OCLC, page 25:
text: Gumbril Senior occupied a tall, narrow-shouldered and rachitic house in a little obscure square not far from Paddington. […] It was a prematurely old and decaying house in a decaying quarter.
ref: 1923 November, Aldous Huxley, chapter II, in Antic Hay, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 17:
text: More important, if the daring financial gamble is won, it may encourage other European nations with overvalued, rachitic currencies, notably France and Greece, to push through their own tough financial programs.
ref: 1947 December 8, “Foreign Exchange: Bold Gamble”, in Time, New York, N.Y.: Time Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 19 Sep 2021:
text: Even as he thought this he saw, leaping from the last stair of a rachitic escalator, down there, a blond girl in a blue dress, bright in the brown darkness.
ref: 1981 August, John Crowley, “The Fairies’ Parliament”, in Little, Big, rack-size edition, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, published October 1983, →ISBN, page 576:
glosses: In a precarious or weak condition; likely to break down or collapse; feeble, rickety.
Derived terms: antirachitic
postrachitic
rachitic pelvis
rachitic rosary
scrofulo-rachitic