di·a·be·tes (d???-b??t?s, -t?z)n.1. Any of a group of diseases characterized by high blood sugar levels caused by insufficient production of insulin, impaired response to insulin, or both, especially:a. Type 1 diabetes.b. Type 2 diabetes.c. Gestational diabetes. In all subsenses also called diabetes mellitus.2. See diabetes insipidus.[Middle English diabete, from Medieval Latin diab?t?s, from Greek, compass, siphon, diabetes, from diabainein, diab?-, to stride or stand with legs apart, cross over, straddle : dia-, dia- + bainein, to go; see gw?- in Indo-European roots.]Word History: Ancient Greek physicians gave the name diab?t?s to a chronic disease characterized by excessive urination?probably what we now know as diabetes insipidus. (Later, the name was also used for a different disease, diabetes mellitus, in which increased urination is a common symptom.) The term is ultimately derived from the verb diabainein, “to stride or stand with the legs apart, step across, pass over,” but it is not certain how diab?t?s came to describe the disease. Diab?t?s has a variety of other meanings in Greek, including “compass” (since a compass can be likened to a person striding with the legs spread wide) and “siphon” (perhaps because a siphon straddles?so to speak?two containers and permits the passage of liquid from one to the other). The first known use of diab?t?s as a designation for a disease is found in the works of Aretaeus of Cappadocia, who probably lived in the first century ad. Aretaeus’s works became standard medical texts of the ancient and medieval world. One chapter of his work On the Causes and Signs of Chronic Diseases is devoted to a condition he calls diab?t?s. Aretaeus, however, was not the first physician to give the condition this name, for he offers his own thoughts on the etymology of the term: “The disease seems to me to have acquired the name diab?t?s, as if from the Greek word for siphon (diab?t?s), because the fluid does not remain in the body.” Some modern scholars, on the other hand, have suggested that as a medical term, diab?t?s originally made reference to the straddling stance taken during urination by those with the disease?the intended meaning may have been “one standing with the legs planted firmly apart.” Whatever its origin, diab?t?s became the standard name for the disease in Greek and medieval medical Latin. Diabetes is first attested in English around 1425 in the spelling diabete, found in a Middle English translation of a Latin medical text by the French physician Guy de Chauliac (ca. 1300-1368): Auicen forsoþ in diabete graunteþ water of whey of shepis mylke. “In the case of diabetes, Avicenna forsooth gives water of the whey of sheep’s milk.”American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.diabetes (?da???bi?t?s; -ti?z) n (Pathology) any of various disorders, esp diabetes mellitus, characterized by excretion of an abnormally large amount of urine[C16: from Latin: siphon, from Greek, literally: a passing through (referring to the excessive urination), from diabainein to pass through, cross over; see diabase]Collins English Dictionary ? Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014di?a?be?tes (?da? ??bi t?s, -tiz) n. any of several disorders characterized by high levels of glucose in the blood and increased urine production, esp. diabetes mellitus. [1555?65;