diabetes

noun

1. (uncountable)Diabetes mellitus; any of a group of metabolic diseases whereby a person (or other animal) has high blood sugar due to an inability to produce, or inability to metabolize, sufficient quantities of the hormone insulin.

   “In the UK, one in 10 people over 40 live with type 2 diabetes, while one in four have high blood pressure, a condition described as a “silent killer” because it increases the risk of heart attack and stroke but rarely causes symptoms beforehand.”

2. (humorous, slang, uncountable)Any food or beverage with a high amount of sugar.

   “This milkshake is pure diabetes, as my friends and I agreed on as a joke when we first came to Black Tap.”

3. (uncountable)Diabetes insipidus; any condition characterized by excessive or incontinent urine, now specifically as caused by impaired production of, or response to, the antidiuretic hormone vasopressin.

   “A Sheeps or Goats bladder being burnt, and the ashes given inwardly, helps the Diabetes, or continuall pissing.”

   “The lady laboured under a Diabetes, in consequence of having used the waters injudiciously for another complaint; and, that she might not be an impediment to the carriage, by ordering it to halt,as often as she should have occasion to disembogue, she had provided herself with a leathern contrivance […].”