Definition of pathology
plural pathologies
1
: the study of the essential nature of diseases and especially of the structural and functional changes produced by them
- studied plant pathology
2
: something abnormal:
a
: the structural and functional deviations from the normal that constitute disease or characterize a particular disease
- the pathology of pneumonia
b
: deviation from propriety or from an assumed normal state of something nonliving or nonmaterial
- the pathology of wine
c
: deviation giving rise to social ills
- connections between these pathologies … and crime
- —Wendy Kaminer
- social pathology
