Symptomatic means being a sign of a wider illness or problem. Symptomatic of a deeper failure, symptomatic treatment, symptomatic cases.
It takes of. In medicine, symptomatic treatment relieves the symptoms without touching the cause, which is sometimes all that can be done. Calling a mistake symptomatic says it is one instance of something larger, which is a heavier charge.
1adjectivesymptomaticBeing a sign of a wider illness or problem.
“The long queues at hospitals are symptomatic of a system under pressure.”
symptomatic is a quality.
Greek symptomatikos comes from symptoma, a happening or coincidence, from syn plus piptein, to fall.
Ancient Greek
συμπτωματικός — of or pertaining to a chance (or a symptom), casual
New Latin
symptomaticus
French
symptomatique
English, today
symptomatic
Built from
French symptomatique, from New Latin symptomaticus, from Ancient Greek συμπτωματικός (“of or pertaining to a chance (or a symptom), casual”), from σύμπτωμα (“a symptom”). by surface analysis, symptom + -atic.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA