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1. (adj.) pathological
of or pertaining to pathology.
2. pathological
caused or affected by disease.
3. pathological
characterized by an unhealthy compulsion:
a pathological liar.
Etymology: (1680–90)
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| Definition of 'pathological' |
Princeton's WordNet |
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1. (adj) pathological, pathologic
of or relating to the practice of pathology
"pathological laboratory"
2. (adj) pathological
caused by or evidencing a mentally disturbed condition
"a pathological liar"; "a pathological urge to succeed"
3. (adj) diseased, morbid, pathologic, pathological
caused by or altered by or manifesting disease or pathology
"diseased tonsils"; "a morbid growth"; "pathologic tissue"; "pathological bodily processes"
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| Definition of 'pathological' |
Webster Dictionary |
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1. (adj) pathological
of or pertaining to pathology
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| Definitions of 'pathological' |
The New Hacker's Dictionary |
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1. pathological
1. [scientific computation] Used of a data set that is grossly
atypical of normal expected input, esp. one that exposes a weakness or bug
in whatever algorithm one is using. An algorithm that can be broken by
pathological inputs may still be useful if such inputs are very unlikely to
occur in practice. 2. When used of test input, implies that it was purposefully
engineered as a worst case. The implication in both senses is that the
data is spectacularly ill-conditioned or that someone had to explicitly set
out to break the algorithm in order to come up with such a crazy example.
3. Also said of an unlikely collection of circumstances. “If
the network is down and comes up halfway through the execution of that
command by root, the system may just crash.” “Yes, but that's
a pathological case.” Often used to dismiss the case from
discussion, with the implication that the consequences are acceptable,
since they will happen so infrequently (if at all) that it doesn't seem
worth going to the extra trouble to handle that case (see sense 1).
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| Alternative search options for 'pathological' |
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Definitions of pathological 
