Other forms: prognoses
A prognosis is the doctor's prediction of how an illness will develop. A good prognosis, a poor prognosis, the prognosis is uncertain.
It is a forecast, where a diagnosis is an identification — the diagnosis says what it is and the prognosis says what will happen. Prognoses are given as probabilities across groups, which is why they are so often wrong about any one person. Note prognostic; and that the word is Greek for knowing beforehand, from the same gnosis as diagnosis.
1nounprognosisThe prediction of how an illness will develop.
“The doctors say the prognosis is good, and she should make a full recovery.”
prognosis is a medical forecast.
Greek prognosis means foreknowledge — pro plus gnosis, knowledge. Diagnosis, know and gnostic come from the same knowing.
Latin
prognōsis
English, today
prognosis
Built from
Learned borrowing from Latin prognōsis. Latin prognōsis (“forecast, prediction; forecast of the course and outcome of a disease”), itself borrowed from Ancient Greek πρόγνωσις (“forecast of the course and outcome of a disease; (Koine) foreknowledge, perceiving beforehand, prediction”), from προ- + γνῶσῐς (“inquiry, investigation; knowledge”). The plural prognoses is a Latin prognōsēs. 2
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA