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Phthisic

Disease
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Affected by phthisis, an older name for pulmonary tuberculosis. It suggests coughing, wasting, and a slow approach to death.

Detailed Definition
Phthisic is a rare historical term whose severity and strangeness can give a poem a period voice. Phthisis commonly referred to the wasting lung disease now identified as tuberculosis, and its poetic use may call up weak breath, bloodied handkerchiefs, narrow rooms, or failed vitality. Because the word is medically archaic, it can distance the speaker from suffering while also preserving the dread of an illness once widely fatal and poorly understood.
Example
Example in poetry:
“The phthisic poet coughed blood into a handkerchief” invokes an old word for tuberculosis, often associated with nineteenth-century literature; “Phthisic light thinned on the curtains” uses the term metaphorically for weak, wasting illumination; A historical speaker might say, “My phthisic sister sang softly between breaths,” emphasizing frailty without romanticizing it; “The phthisic winter consumed the last green leaves” makes seasonal decline resemble wasting illness
Additional Notes
Phthisic is an archaic adjective linked to tuberculosis. It evokes the Romantic and Victorian association of coughing, pallor, wasting, and doomed beauty.
Also Known As
Phthisical Consumptive
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