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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
constipation
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
chronic
▪ The rich eat too much meat and suffer from chronic constipation, diseases of the bowel, gout, and bladder stones.
▪ Indeed, his only problem seems to have been chronic constipation.
▪ We found that chronic constipation in young children can persist for many years.
▪ Symptoms of chronic constipation persisted in one third of our patients, 3-12 years after initial evaluation and treatment.
▪ This risk is particularly important in view of the wide abuse of self administered laxatives for chronic constipation.
▪ By contrast, in patients with chronic constipation fasting transit of marker was not recorded.
▪ Patients with idiopathic chronic constipation have a decreased number and duration of giant migrating complexes than healthy controls.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Child may wet the bed and have constipation.
▪ If you suffer from constipation, perhaps you are clinging to the past?
▪ The value of bran, psyllium, and other bulking materials is well established in the treatment of constipation.
▪ There were no manometric features in the fasting motility that differentiated the patients without constipation from those with neuropathy and constipation.
▪ These leftovers, the ketones, not only cause bad breath but constipation, nausea, and weakness as well.
▪ This was done to be sure that the constipation was and would be adequately treated.
▪ Where constipation comes on suddenly, or there is blood in the stools, always ask for medical advice.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Constipation

Constipation \Con`sti*pa"tion\, n. [L. constipatio a crowding together: cf. F. constipation.]

  1. Act of crowding anything into a less compass, or the state of being crowded or pressed together; condensation. [Obs.]

    Fullness of matter, or a pretty close constipation . . . of its particles.
    --Boyle.

  2. A state of the bowels in which the evacuations are infrequent and difficult, or the intestines become filled with hardened f[ae]ces; costiveness.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
constipation

c.1400, "constriction of tissue," from Late Latin constipationem (nominative constipatio), noun of state from Latin constipare "to press or crowd together," from com- "together" (see com-) + stipare "to cram, pack" (see stiff (adj.)). Specifically of the bowel condition since 1540s.

Wiktionary
constipation

n. 1 Act of crowding anything into a lesser compass, or the state of being crowded or pressed together; condensation. 2 A state of the bowels in which the evacuations are infrequent and difficult, or the intestines become filled with hardened faeces; costiveness.

WordNet
constipation
  1. n. irregular and infrequent or difficult evacuation of the bowels; can be a symptom of intestinal obstruction or diverticulitis [syn: irregularity]

  2. the act of making something futile and useless (as by routine) [syn: stultification, impairment, deadening]

Wikipedia
Constipation

Constipation refers to bowel movements that are infrequent or hard to pass. Constipation is a common cause of painful defecation. Severe constipation includes obstipation (failure to pass stools or gas) and fecal impaction, which can progress to bowel obstruction and become life-threatening.

Constipation is a symptom with many causes. These causes are of two types: obstructed defecation and colonic slow transit (or hypomobility). About 50 percent of people evaluated for constipation at tertiary referral hospitals have obstructed defecation. This type of constipation has mechanical and functional causes. Causes of colonic slow transit constipation include diet, hormonal disorders such as hypothyroidism, side effects of medications, and rarely heavy metal toxicity. Because constipation is a symptom, not a disease, effective treatment of constipation may require first determining the cause. Treatments include changes in dietary habits, laxatives, enemas, biofeedback, and in particular situations surgery may be required.

Constipation is common; in the general population rates of constipation varies from 2–30 percent. In elderly people living in care homes the rate of constipation is 50–75 percent. In the United States expenditures on medications for constipation are greater than per year.

Usage examples of "constipation".

The hygienic treatment of this form of amenorrhea, then, consists in physical culture, regular bathing, and the regulation of the bowels, if constipated, as suggested in this volume under the head of constipation.

Monsieur Bianchi had become an expert on every menopause in the block, every constipation, every little Alka-Seltzer: it was as though he had rummaged in the bathroom cupboard.

Such bark chemically contains cinnamic acid, tannin, a resin, and sugar, so that its continued use will induce constipation.

The inmates of boarding-schools, factory girls, seamstresses, milliners, employes in manufacturing establishments, and all who sit and toil almost unremittingly twelve hours in the day, do not get sufficient exercise of all the muscles of the body, and are often troubled with obstinate constipation.

Finlayson of Glasgow has recently reported an interesting case in a physician who, after protracted constipation and pain in the back and sides, passed large numbers of the larvae of the flower-fly, anthomyia canicularis, and there are other instances of myiosis interna from swallowing the larvae of the common house-fly.

The symptoms were prostration, sleeplessness, exhaustion, over-fatigue from mental trouble, overstudy and anxiety, indigestion, dyspepsia, constipation, headache, inability to concentrate the mind, general lassitude, melancholia, backache and pains from the top of my head to the sole of my feet.

The condition of the bowels varies from constipation to diarrhea, although sometimes they are quite regular.

He finds it hard to believe that such mundane concerns as ingrowing toenails and constipation ever sully her thoughts.

IOO paint-bubbling halitosis, 100 per cent constipation, a negligible increase in weight, and mouth farts.

No one likes meactually most people dislike me instinctively, including my familyI'm not much good at my work, I've never had a girlfriend or a friend of any kind, I've got very little imagination, nothing makes me laugh, I'm fat, poor, bald, I've got a horrible spotty face, constipation, BO, bad breath, no prick, and I'm one inch tall.

This was also an equivocal case, apparently arising from constipation and irritation of the rectum.

I tell Vina it's constipating, and constipation breeds God knows what illnesses, but nothing will break her of the habit.

Matthew Cowen, who had had a cardiac catheterization the day before, displayed odd symptoms alarmingly like the late Cedric Harring: arthritis, constipation, and dry skin.

The company physicians did not examine the sick but had them line up behind one another in the dispensaries and a nurse would put a pill the color of copper sulfate on their tongues, whether they had malaria, gonorrhea, or constipation.

It has also been employed in fevers, liver diseases, constipation and cholera infantum, and for outward application to wounds and sores.