• A specialty concerned with the nature and cause of disease as expressed by changes in cellular or tissue structure and function caused by the disease process.
  NLM Medical Subject Headings
  U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2021
• The medical science, and specialty practice, concerned with all aspects of disease, but with special reference to the essential nature, causes, and development of abnormal conditions, as well as the structural and functional changes that result from the disease processes. Informally used to mean the result of such an examination.
  NCI Thesaurus
  U.S. National Cancer Institute, 2021
• The underlying abnormalities that contribute to or are characteristic of a disease.
  Harvard Dictionary of Health Terms
  Harvard Medical Publishing, 2011
• Pathology, medical specialty concerned with the determining causes of disease and the structural and functional changes occurring in abnormal conditions. Early efforts to study pathology were often stymied by religious prohibitions against autopsies, but these gradually relaxed during the late...
  Encyclopedia Britannica
  Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 2020