myosis

1. 1.

   an acute infectious disease occurring in epidemic form and featuring paroxysms of pain (usually in the chest)

   Synonymsepidemic pleurodyniaepidemic myalgiadiaphragmatic pleurisyBornholm disease

   Broaderepidemic disease
2. 2.

   reflex contraction of the sphincter muscle of the iris in response to a bright light (or certain drugs) causing the pupil to become smaller

   Synonymslight reflexpupillary reflexmiosis

   Broaderreflex

Other forms of myosis

plural

myoses

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about myosis

What does myosis mean?

myosis means "an acute infectious disease occurring in epidemic form and featuring paroxysms of pain (usually in the chest)". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in myosis?

myosis has 2 syllables: myo-sis. The stress falls on "myo".

What is another word for myosis?

Close synonyms include epidemic pleurodynia, epidemic myalgia, diaphragmatic pleurisy, Bornholm disease, light reflex. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is myosis a common word?

myosis is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.