cretinism
(no longer in technical use) a congenital disease due to absence or deficiency of normal thyroid secretion, characterized by physical deformity, dwarfism, and intellectual disability, and often by goiter: This condition is now diagnosed as congenital hypothyroidism or congenital iodine deficiency.
Origin of cretinism
1Words Nearby cretinism
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use cretinism in a sentence
Certainly, and you can think yourself happy, until gradually a contented cretinism steals over you, body and mind.
The Man Between | Amelia E. BarrSuch children, in their mental hebetude and physical degeneracy, suggest a degree of cretinism.
Feminism and Sex-Extinction | Arabella KenealyThe Swiss have similar feelings as to those of their families whom cretinism has reduced to idiocy.
Woman in the Nineteenth Century | Margaret Fuller OssoliNot being aware of this act of cretinism, she went at him on the marriage business with a hopeful spirit.
Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty | J. W. de ForestThe peculiar disease called cretinism, as well as goitre, has been attributed to a predominance of certain chemicals in the soil.
British Dictionary definitions for cretinism
/ (ˈkrɛtɪˌnɪzəm) /
old-fashioned a condition arising from a deficiency of thyroid hormone, present from birth, characterized by dwarfism and mental retardation: See also myxoedema
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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