How to Use etiology in a Sentence

etiology

noun
  • Healthspanners want to understand the etiologies of cancer and heart disease and then block them.
    — Tad Friend, The New Yorker, 24 Mar. 2017
  • Even in the hands of forensic pathologists, the exact etiology may never be known with certainty.
    — James Hamblin, The Atlantic, 16 June 2017
  • Advertisement Each of the epithets has its own etiology, and some of their origins can be traced to their inception.
    — Lila Seidman, Los Angeles Times, 4 Oct. 2023
  • But Alker has been defying the clock that has often been the etiology of agony for professional athletes.
    — Alan Blinder, New York Times, 17 May 2023
  • The etiology of the crime, and the punishment that may follow, stretch past the experiences of two men in the 10th arrondissement.
    — Jason Farago, The New York Review of Books, 18 Apr. 2019
  • There have always been cases of hepatitis in children for which a cause cannot be found — such cases are labeled pediatric hepatitis of unknown etiology.
    — Helen Branswell, STAT, 18 June 2022
  • The etiology of non-occupational carpal tunnel syndrome is not well understood.
    — Ncbi Rofl, Discover Magazine, 27 Jan. 2010
  • One way to clear up that uncertainty would be to identify the disease’s etiology—the underlying cause of the problem, assuming there’s just one.
    — Jacob Brogan, Smithsonian, 19 May 2017
  • Given its complexity, frequent painfulness, mysterious etiology, and lack of a cure, the disease is a research white whale.
    — Seyward Darby, Longreads, 27 June 2024
  • But the true etiology of Christina’s disease remains a medical enigma, one that continues to be explored in academic medicine.
    — Rebecca Kreston, Discover Magazine, 30 Mar. 2016
  • Rule out infectious etiologies of diarrhea before starting Mytesi.
    — Miami Herald, 14 Feb. 2024
  • The term chronic fatigue syndrome was coined in the 1980s for cases simulating post-viral syndromes that were not found to have a viral etiology.
    — Steven Phillips, STAT, 14 Sep. 2023
  • Unlike with an infectious etiology, traveler’s constipation tends to arise from disruptions to your gut’s normal routine.
    — Washington Post, 5 May 2022
  • All were treated with antibiotic drops and the infections quickly resolved, pointing to a bacterial etiology.
    — Rebecca Kreston, Discover Magazine, 1 Mar. 2016
  • If infectious etiologies are not considered, there is a risk that patients with infectious etiologies will not receive the appropriate therapy and their disease may worsen.
    — Miami Herald, 14 Feb. 2024
  • The psychological descriptions are often an attempt to create a narrative just to make sense of what’s happening when the etiology isn’t clearly understood.
    — New York Times, 23 June 2017
  • Most cases of intractable paroxysmal sneezing reported in the literature occur in adolescents and appear to have a psychogenic etiology.
    — Seriously Science, Discover Magazine, 19 Aug. 2016
  • Any important disease, whose physical etiology is not understood, and for which treatment is ineffectual, tends to be awash in significance.
    — Ellen McGirt, Fortune, 18 Mar. 2020
  • Like most just-so stories, this appealing etiology has disintegrated under scrutiny.
    — Richard Pallardy, Discover Magazine, 3 Nov. 2021
  • She was referred for evaluation of an allergic etiology before continuing her workup with a computed tomographic head scan.
    — Seriously Science, Discover Magazine, 19 Aug. 2016
  • One gets the sense of a man perpetually drawn to the edge of the unknown, as the boy to the edge of the sea—to questions about our primordial origins, about the etiology and eschatology of our planet, about what erodes and what endures.
    — Kathryn Schulz, New Yorker, 9 Feb. 2026
  • Chronic kidney disease has swept Central America; again, the etiology of the epidemic has been described as mysterious.
    — Vann R. Newkirk Ii, The Atlantic, 15 Oct. 2020
  • Not only are there definite answers about the etiology of mental illnesses, but the illnesses themselves are definitive identity markers.
    — WIRED, 14 Sep. 2022
  • In the end, the etiology of eating disorders remains infuriatingly complex.
    — Kate Willsky, Washington Post, 26 July 2022
  • However, there is plausible evidence for an infectious etiology, including observations that the disease is known to occur in outbreaks.
    — Vincent Racaniello, Discover Magazine, 12 Jan. 2012
  • Bray rejects this etiology of the disease, which implies that the anorexic, like so many Madame Bovaries before her, suffers simply from an inability to distinguish fact from fiction.
    — Anna Shechtman, The New Yorker, 20 Dec. 2021
  • Most repetitive behaviors, regardless of etiology, begin in childhood.
    — Kate Murphy, ajc, 27 Sep. 2017
  • Those who know the most about it are inside this hotel, discussing stuttering etiology and neurology, fears and challenges, and following Róisín through the streets of Atlanta in an effort to proclaim the word stutter.
    — Rachel Hoge, Longreads, 4 Aug. 2017
  • Although no clear etiologies for this cluster exist, occupational exposures possibly contributed.
    — Elana Glowatz, Newsweek, 9 Mar. 2018
  • Butler said this event could reveal that adenovirus 41 is responsible for a portion of pediatric hepatitis cases of unknown etiology, small numbers of which occur annually.
    — Helen Branswell, STAT, 9 May 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'etiology.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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