What Does insidious Mean
The concept of insidious is used to qualify what is done with artifice or deceit , or that serves to generate harmful tricks . The term, from the Latin word insidiōsus , is also used to refer to the pernicious or harmful that is masked behind a harmless appearance .
For example: “The player sent an insidious message to his teammate” , “An insidious journalist managed to generate a confrontation between the members of the cast” , “An insidious campaign caused the fall of the president's image ” .
Suppose that, at a press conference, the technical director of a soccer team that was defeated affirms that the team did not have a good level and that there is still time for the players to assimilate the idea that he intends to translate on the field of play . Minutes later, a reporter tells a footballer that the coach stated that the players do not have a good level and that they cannot understand his ideas. Thus, by misrepresenting the words of the technician, the journalist seeks to generate a controversy. Thus it can be argued that the comment he made to the player was insidious .
In the field of medicine , on the other hand, a disorder or a disease that at first appears benign but which, in reality, hides a more serious condition is named as insidious . Insidious diseases start slowly, without obvious symptoms, so the patient is not aware of the condition.
The basal cell carcinoma , for example, has an insidious onset: first appear small nodules, but then increase their volume . It is the most common skin tumor.
One disease that has an insidious and slow onset is Alzheimer's. It is one of the worst conditions that a person can suffer in their old age , since it leads to the degeneration of their brain, progressively leading to a state of dementia until it finally causes death. There is still no known way to reverse Alzheimer's disease .
There are certain diseases that can appear insidiously or acutely. Such is the case with sarcoidosis . It is a disorder characterized by the development of granulomas (accumulations of inflammatory cells) in any region of the body, although they generally appear in the lymph nodes and in the lungs.
Other parts of the body where sarcoidosis usually develops are organs such as the heart, skin, and eyes. When sarcoidosis occurs in an acute form, the period of deterioration is very short: in a matter of a few weeks, the individual exhibits problems in the organ or organs where the accumulations of cells are taking place.
However, if sarcoidosis occurs insidiously, then the time that elapses between the onset and the presence of easy-to-perceive symptoms can be measured in years. The acute form is more curable, while the insidious one often becomes chronic.
Since the word insidious is not used very frequently in everyday speech, it is necessary to resort to its synonyms to find examples that are easier to understand. Among the most used are the following: deceptive, treacherous, alarmist, deceitful, cunning, scheming, malicious and deceitful . At the opposite extreme we have the antonyms sincere and frank .
As we can see, all the synonyms have negative connotations with respect to the intentions of the subject towards a third party: the insidious individual has bad intentions, does not keep his word, persecutes deception with cunning, generates intrigue and always has a confused speech. In short, it is the opposite profile of an honest person.