phenylketonuria

1. 1.

   a genetic disorder of metabolism; lack of the enzyme needed to turn phenylalanine into tyrosine results in an accumulation of phenylalanine in the body fluids which causes various degrees of mental deficiency

   SynonymsPKU

   Broaderinborn error of metabolism

Other forms of phenylketonuria

plural

phenylketonurias·

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 phenylketonuria

What does phenylketonuria mean?

phenylketonuria means "a genetic disorder of metabolism; lack of the enzyme needed to turn phenylalanine into tyrosine results in an accumulation of phenylalanine in the body fluids which causes various degrees of mental deficiency".

How many syllables are in phenylketonuria?

phenylketonuria has 7 syllables: phe-nyl-ke-to-nu-ri-a. The stress falls on "nu".

What is another word for phenylketonuria?

Close synonyms include PKU. 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 phenylketonuria a common word?

phenylketonuria 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.