malacia

From Latin malacia, from Ancient Greek μαλακία (malakía, “softness, sickness”).

malacia (countable and uncountable, plural malacias)

1. (medicine, pathology) Abnormal softening of organs or tissues of the human body. [from 19th c.]
   • 1860, Rudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow, Cellular Pathology as Based Upon Physiological and Pathological Histology, page 318:

     As soon, namely, as a process of this sort sets in in a compound organ, as for example, a muscle, a palpable myo-malacia is certainly produced when all the muscular elements at a given point are at once affected; but it happens far more frequently that, in the course of a muscle, only a comparatively small number of primitive fasciculi are affected, whilst the others remain almost intact.

2. (medicine, obsolete) An abnormal craving for certain types of food. [from 17th c.]
   • 1916, A. J. Carlson, The Control of hunger in health and disease, page 267:

     The least abnormal condition appears to be the malacia, or desire for highly spiced or acid foods that are sometimes seen in chlorotic girls and in pregnant women.

• “malacia” (US) / “malacia” (UK) in Oxford Dictionaries, Oxford University Press.

• Calamia

From Latin malacia, from Ancient Greek μαλακία (malakía, “softness, sickness”).

malacia f (plural malacie)

1. (pathology) malacia

• osteomalacia

• calamai