Dis-ease or disease?
dis-ease is a noun meaning “Lack of a feeling of ease; uneasiness”; disease is a noun meaning “An abnormal condition of a human, animal or plant that causes discomfort or…”. dis-ease is written with a hyphen and disease as one word; they are used differently.
What is the difference between dis-ease and disease?
| dis-ease | disease | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun | noun, verb |
| Meaning | Lack of a feeling of ease; uneasiness | An abnormal condition of a human, animal or plant that causes discomfort or dysfunction; distinct from injury insofar as the latter is usually instantaneously… Any abnormal or harmful condition, as of society, people's attitudes, way of living etc To infect with a disease |
| Example | none recorded | The tomato plants had some kind of disease that left their leaves splotchy and their fruit withered |
| Forms | none | diseases |
| Pronunciation | /dɪsˈiːz/ | /dɪˈziːz/ [dɪˈzɪi̯z] /dɪˈziz/ |
| In writing | not counted (the list counts single words) | 79 times per million words |
Sources: dis-ease and disease in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of dis-ease and disease
dis-ease
- 1
Lack of a feeling of ease; uneasiness
disease
- 1
An abnormal condition of a human, animal or plant that causes discomfort or dysfunction; distinct from injury insofar as the latter is usually instantaneously acquired
The tomato plants had some kind of disease that left their leaves splotchy and their fruit withered
- 2
To infect with a disease
- 3
Any abnormal or harmful condition, as of society, people's attitudes, way of living etc
- 4
A lack of ease; uneasiness; trouble; vexation; disquiet
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, dis-ease or disease?
dis-ease is a phrase, which the list of single words does not count; disease 79 times per million words.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search dis-ease vs disease?
“dis-ease vs disease” is searched about 70 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“disease vs dis-ease”, “dis-ease or disease”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.