rheumatoid arthritis

1. 1.

   a chronic autoimmune disease with inflammation of the joints and marked deformities; something (possibly a virus) triggers an attack on the synovium by the immune system, which releases cytokines that stimulate an inflammatory reaction that can lead to the destruction of all components of the joint

   Synonymsatrophic arthritisrheumatism

   Broaderarthritisautoimmune disease

   Narrowerpsoriatic arthritisStill's disease

   virus

Questions about rheumatoid arthritis

What does rheumatoid arthritis mean?

rheumatoid arthritis means "a chronic autoimmune disease with inflammation of the joints and marked deformities; something (possibly a virus) triggers an attack on the synovium by the immune system, which releases cytokines that stimulate an inflammatory reaction that can lead to the destruction of all components of the joint".

What is another word for rheumatoid arthritis?

Close synonyms include atrophic arthritis, rheumatism. 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 rheumatoid arthritis a common word?

rheumatoid arthritis 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.