Word.ws English Dictionary

elephantitis

elephantitis is the misconstruction of elephantiasis.

Meaning of elephantiasis

Noun

elephantiasis (usually uncountable, plural elephantiases)

  1. (usually) A complication of chronic filariasis, in which nematode worms block the lymphatic vessels, usually in the legs or scrotum, causing extreme enlargement of the infected area.
  2. (obsolete, usually) Synonym of leprosy.
    Synonyms:
    leprosy

Forms of elephantitis

alternative formelephantitus

Origin of elephantitis

By confusion with -itis (“inflammation”).

Questions about elephantitis

What is elephantitis the misconstruction of?
Elephantitis is the misconstruction of elephantiasis.

Words near elephantitis in the dictionary

  1. elephantine
  2. elephantine tortoise
  3. elephantine tortoises
  4. elephantinely
  5. elephantish
  6. elephantitis
  7. elephantitus
  8. elephantless
  9. elephantlike
  10. elephantnose fish
  11. elephantnose fishes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: elephantitis (page history and authors); elephantiasis (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “elephantitis.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/elephantitis. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.