Is Alzheimer disease an illness or a syndrome? Can a flu be referred to as a disorder? There is an abundance of medical terms to describe illness: while some overlap, others exist for a reason.

Our first semantic stop is the word injury, which is quite distinct from the rest of the medical grab-bag. An injury results in physical harm or damage to the body. For example, a cut is an injury. Fractures and dislocations would also fall under that category. It may seem overly simplistic: indeed, one could explore this definition further and write an entire article about it. For our purposes, we will stick to “physical damage”.

A disease by comparison is a condition that impairs normal function. It can result from various causes, such as environmental or genetic, and is characterized by a group of symptoms that point to its cause. For example, celiac disease…