Meaning & use
asthma
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Meanings
noununcountablemedical
A long-term illness of the lungs that makes breathing difficult, often with wheezing and coughing.
Grammar: No plural and no 'a/an': you say 'He has asthma', not 'He has an asthma'.
Patterns
- have asthma
- suffer from asthma
- an asthma attack
- asthma is triggered by something
My little brother has asthma, so he always carries an inhaler.
Cold air can trigger an asthma attack during winter.
She was diagnosed with asthma when she was seven.
noununcountablemedical
The breathing difficulty caused by this illness, especially during a flare-up.
Grammar: Used for the ongoing condition or an episode; usually with 'his/her/your' before it.
Patterns
- someone's asthma gets worse
- control someone's asthma
- asthma symptoms
His asthma gets worse when the pollen count is high.
Doctors can now control most children's asthma with daily medicine.
Common combinations
- asthma attack
- He had an asthma attack in the middle of the race.
- suffer from asthma
- About one in ten children suffers from asthma.
- childhood asthma
- Childhood asthma often improves as people get older.
- an asthma inhaler
- She keeps an asthma inhaler in her school bag.
- trigger asthma
- Dust and smoke can trigger asthma in sensitive people.
Synonyms and how they differ
- wheezing
- This describes the whistling sound made when breathing is blocked, not the illness itself.
- breathlessness
- A general symptom of many conditions; asthma is the specific long-term disease.
Word family
- asthmatic adjective
- Relating to asthma, as in 'asthmatic symptoms'.
- asthmatic noun
- A person who has asthma.
Commonly confused: asthma or asthma? asthma or emphysema?
asthma vs asthma
Do not confuse the spelling with 'asthma' vs 'asma'; the 'th' is silent, so it sounds like 'AZ-muh'.
asthma vs emphysema
Another lung disease, but it is different: emphysema damages the air sacs and is usually linked to smoking.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'asthma' correctly?
Choose one answer.
'Asthma' is uncountable, so it takes no article: 'She has asthma'. Options with 'an', 'a' or 'the' treat it as a countable noun, which is wrong here.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “asthma”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.