Meaning & use
dysmorphia
Last updated
Meanings
noununcountablemedicalspecialist
A mental health condition in which a person is very worried about a small or imagined flaw in their appearance.
Grammar: No plural; often used with body: body dysmorphia.
Patterns
- body dysmorphia
- suffer from dysmorphia
- dysmorphia about something
She was diagnosed with body dysmorphia after years of avoiding mirrors.
People with dysmorphia may check their appearance many times a day.
The clinic offers therapy for dysmorphia and related anxiety disorders.
noununcountablemedicalspecialist
A physical abnormality in the shape or form of a body part, especially as a birth defect.
Grammar: Used mainly in medical descriptions; countable in some technical writing as dysmorphias.
Patterns
- facial dysmorphia
- skeletal dysmorphia
The scan showed facial dysmorphia associated with the syndrome.
Researchers described the dysmorphia in the limbs of the affected mice.
Common combinations
- body dysmorphia
- Body dysmorphia can make a normal feature seem seriously flawed.
- suffer from dysmorphia
- He has suffered from dysmorphia since his teenage years.
- diagnose someone with dysmorphia
- The doctor diagnosed her with dysmorphia and referred her to a specialist.
- dysmorphia about your appearance
- Her dysmorphia about her appearance made social events difficult.
Synonyms and how they differ
- body dysmorphic disorder
- The full clinical name; use it in medical or formal writing, while dysmorphia is the shorter everyday term.
- dysmorphophobia
- An older, rarer term for the same condition; it is now less common in modern medical English.
Word family
- dysmorphic adjective
- Relating to abnormal shape or form, as in dysmorphic features.
Commonly confused: dysmorphia or dysmorphophobia? dysmorphia or dystrophy?
dysmorphia vs dysmorphophobia
This is an older synonym for the same condition, not a separate fear of monsters or deformities.
dysmorphia vs dystrophy
Dystrophy refers to the wasting or weakening of tissue, especially muscle; dysmorphia is about shape or perceived appearance.
Practice
Which sentence uses dysmorphia correctly?
Choose one answer.
Dysmorphia is a mental health condition about perceived appearance flaws, so sentence 0 fits. Sentence 1 describes a physical injury, not the condition; sentence 2 treats it as a medicine; sentence 3 confuses it with a physical illness.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “dysmorphia”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.