Other forms: diabetics
Diabetic describes somebody whose body cannot control its sugar levels. A diabetic diet, diabetic since childhood, diabetic complications.
Type one and type two are different conditions with the same name: one is the body attacking the cells that make insulin, the other is the body responding to insulin poorly. The adjective is preferred to the noun now — a person with diabetes, rather than a diabetic.
1noundiabeticSomebody whose body cannot control its sugar levels.
“As a diabetic he carried glucose tablets everywhere.”
2adjectiveunableUnable to control the body's sugar levels.
“Because he is diabetic, he has to check his blood sugar before every meal.”
diabetic is a medical condition.
From diabetes plus -ic. Greek diabetes means a siphon, from the great thirst and passing of water it causes.
Proto-Indo-European
*gʷem-
Ancient Greek
διαβήτης
Latin
diabētēs — siphon
English
diabetes
English, today
diabetic
From diabetes + -ic. a doublet of diabatic. diabetes comes from Latin diabētēs (“siphon”), from Ancient Greek διαβήτης, from Ancient Greek διαβαίνω (“to pass through”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA