Home North American English runt disease

Definition of runt disease in US English:

runt disease

noun

  • A syndrome observed in laboratory animals injected as newborns with lymphoid cells from an adult individual, characterized by growth retardation and abnormalities of the liver, spleen, and lymph nodes (later recognized as a form of graft-versus-host disease).

Origin

1950s; earliest use found in Journal Cellular & Comparative Physiology.