Word.ws English Dictionary

sequelae

Syllables: se·que·lae/sɪˈkwiːliː/US/sɪˈkwɛliː/

sequelae is the plural of sequela.

Meaning of sequela

Noun

sequela (plural sequelae or (archaic) sequelæ)

  1. Chiefly in the plural: a condition or disease which follows chronologically after an earlier one, being either partly or wholly caused by it, or made possible by it.
    • Complications: haematoma formation is a dangerous sequela of this operation, and careful drainage with polythene tubing was carried out.1970, J[ames] G[raham] Ballard, “Princess Margaret’s Face Lift”, in The Atrocity Exhibition, revised edition, London: Flamingo, HarperCollinsPublishers, published 2001, →ISBN, page 178
  2. (broadly, formal) That which follows; a consequence, an effect.
    • Initially he dosed himself [with opium] to quell neuralgia associated with 'gout' and nervous shooting pains in the limb and head, unable to bear the agonies these complaints produced on what Humphry Davy would call his 'excessive sensibility'. Self-dosing brought emotional and physical sequelae of...2003, Roy Porter, “Dependent Bodies”, in Flesh in the Age of Reason, London: Allen Lane, Penguin Group, →ISBN, part IV (The Science of Man for a New Society), page 407
  3. (broadly, formal, rare) People who adhere to the opinions or teachings of another; followers.

Origin of sequelae

Learned borrowing from Latin sequēlae.

Phrases with sequelae

Questions about sequelae

What is sequelae the plural of?
Sequelae is the plural of sequela.
How do you pronounce sequelae?
Sequelae is pronounced /sɪˈkwiːliː/ (UK).

Words near sequelae in the dictionary

  1. Sequeiras
  2. sequel
  3. sequel hook
  4. sequel hooks
  5. sequela
  6. sequelae
  7. sequelisation
  8. sequelise
  9. sequelised
  10. sequelises
  11. sequelising

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sequelae (page history and authors); sequela (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Güiseppi669-sequelae.wav.

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