a. Also 7 chronique, 7–8 chronick(e. [a. F. chronique ad. L. chronicus, a. Gr. χρονικ-ός, of or concerning time, f. χρόνος time; see also -IC. In late L., chronicus was extended by the physicians to qualify diseases (sense 2), for which the Gr. word was χρόνιος. Caelius Aurelianus wrote a work De Morbis acutis et chronicis.]
† 1. Of or relating to time; chronological. Obs.
1605. Broughton, Corruption Relig., 26. There was no Chronique observation in record before Eratosthenes … compiled one.
2. Of diseases, etc.: Lasting a long time, long-continued, lingering, inveterate; opposed to acute.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 391. These long diseases which be called Chronique.
1655. H. Vaughan, Silex Scint., II. 193. Chronic pains, which surely kill, though slow.
1788. J. C. Smyth, in Med. Commun., II. 174. The disease … becomes more or less acute or chronic.
1813. J. Thomson, Lect. Inflam., 128. Chronic inflammations are found to differ from the acute, not only by the greater degree of mildness, but, in some instances, by a real or apparent absence of the constitutional symptoms or fever by which inflammation is usually accompanied.
1858. J. Martineau, Stud. Chr., 220. Pestilence, which had become chronic in Italy.
b. So with invalid, and the like.
1842. A. Combe, Physiol. Digestion (ed. 4), 198. Chronic invalids and persons of a delicate habit of body.
1861. Emerson, Soc. & Solit. Old Age, Wks. (Bohn), III. 131. The chronic valetudinarian.
3. transf. Continuous, constant.
1860. Mill, Repr. Govt. (1865), 30/1. A state of chronic revolution and civil war.
1864. Linnet’s Trial, II. III. v. 44. Most women have a chronic horror of anything resembling a court of justice.
1871. E. F. Burr, Ad Fidem, viii. 142. Chronic doubts require chronic relieving.
4. subst. = Chronic invalid, sufferer, etc.
1886. Pall Mall Gaz., 18 Aug., 11/2. We question whether the late donor intended his sanatorium to be filled with chronics.
