symptom-like word
June 23, 2010 5:17 PM Subscribe
Paging word people: I'm looking for a word that means something like "symptom," but it's not "symptom," and I'm not sure exactly how its meaning differs from "symptom."
This is such a dumb question but this is the SECOND evening I've spent looking for this word and I have to ask.
Clues:
1. I saw it used here on MeFi once. That is the only time I've ever seen it used in the wild. I had to look it up.
2. I remember it meaning something very similar to "symptom," but it wasn't exactly a synonym; it had a distinct, technical meaning. I think its meaning was something like "phenonmena that accompany a given condition but don't necessarily cause it" (not that a symptom is necessarily causative either)--note that that definition is just a wild memory-based guess.
3. Wikipedia's symptom page has this section which led me to the concept of medical signs which I believe might have something to do with it.
4. So my best guess is that maybe the word in question is some unusual or archaic expression for what is now called a "sign" in the medical world.
5. ...although it's very possible that this is a garden path/red herring and that the word I'm looking for has some completely different relation to the word "symptom."
No amount of thesaurusing or Googling so far has helped me. Help!
This is such a dumb question but this is the SECOND evening I've spent looking for this word and I have to ask.
Clues:
1. I saw it used here on MeFi once. That is the only time I've ever seen it used in the wild. I had to look it up.
2. I remember it meaning something very similar to "symptom," but it wasn't exactly a synonym; it had a distinct, technical meaning. I think its meaning was something like "phenonmena that accompany a given condition but don't necessarily cause it" (not that a symptom is necessarily causative either)--note that that definition is just a wild memory-based guess.
3. Wikipedia's symptom page has this section which led me to the concept of medical signs which I believe might have something to do with it.
4. So my best guess is that maybe the word in question is some unusual or archaic expression for what is now called a "sign" in the medical world.
5. ...although it's very possible that this is a garden path/red herring and that the word I'm looking for has some completely different relation to the word "symptom."
No amount of thesaurusing or Googling so far has helped me. Help!
Response by poster: Yess!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Daily Alice!!!!!!!!!
posted by skwt at 5:21 PM on June 23, 2010
posted by skwt at 5:21 PM on June 23, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Justinian at 5:19 PM on June 23, 2010