Definition
Dysfunctional is an adjective that describes something that is not functioning as it should, or that is not working properly.
Pronunciation
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Excerpts from News Articles
Around the fifth day after the onset of symptoms, maculopapular rash, most prominent on the trunk (chest, back, stomach), may appear. Nausea, vomiting, chest pain, a sore throat, abdominal pain, and diarrhea may appear. Symptoms become increasingly severe and can include jaundice, inflammation of the pancreas, severe weight loss, delirium, shock, liver failure, massive hemorrhaging, and multi-organ dysfunction .
Rikers Island is the largest detention center in the United States… and probably its most dysfunctional . In this gripping oral history, covering the 1970s through to the present, journalists Rayman and Blau talk to all the stakeholders in Rikers’ roiling parallel society, from incarcerated people to prison officers to their intermediaries in the legal system. The picture formed from these multivocal testimonies is not a pretty one, and provides further evidence of the dire need for carceral reform in America. –JD
We hear a lot about the shocking dysfunction in Congress. By my count, this paper has published 90 articles on the GOP’s many tortured attempts to elect a speaker and another 84 (and counting) on the debt ceiling. But what about stories of shocking function? Lately, I find those stories even more captivating.
One of Doan's most widely cited papers is on the purported link between pornography and erectile dysfunction , which the bulk of scientific research has shown to be weak. The paper was recommended for retraction because its authors did not obtain consent from some of the subjects. The journal it was published in is considered "predatory" by some academics because authors pay to be published and undergo little to no scientific review.
After adjusting for other major life stressors such as child poverty, other types of abuse and neglect, serious household dysfunction and sexual assault in adulthood, we found survivors were 1.5-2 times more likely than their peers to experience persistent difficulties. This included smoking and alcohol consumption, high systemic inflammation, poor oral health, poor mental health, sexually transmitted diseases, high-conflict relationships, financial difficulties and high levels of antisocial behaviour.
Comparatively, the risk of death by penicillin — a common antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections like pneumonia — is four times greater than it is for mifepristone, according to a study on life-threatening allergic reactions. Risk of death by taking Viagra — used to treat erectile dysfunction — is nearly 10 times greater, according to a study cited in the amicus brief filed by the FDA.
Data analyzed by CNN shows that mifepristone is even safer than some of the most common prescription medications. The risk of death from penicillin, an antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections like pneumonia, for example, is four times greater than it is for mifepristone. The risk of death after taking Viagra – used to treat erectile dysfunction – is nearly 10 times higher.
A less dysfunctional tax season doesn’t mean people aren’t having issues, especially if they need to amend a return. The process is like a tortoise in the IRS system — slow-moving.
When the world’s richest and most powerful families deal with the tricky task of succession planning, it can attract a lot of interest. Think of news reports from the Murdoch’s media empire or, more recently, luxury goods company LVMH. Even fictional clans such as the Roys of TV show Succession attract massive global audiences with tales of dysfunction as members battle for control of the family firm.
Humza Yousaf, previously the health secretary, this week became the new head of the SNP and Scotland’s first minister. But the party he leads suddenly seems as dysfunctional as Waystar Royco.
Today, political violence, unemployment, the climate crisis, increasing living costs – with nearly one-third of the country living in poverty – and dysfunctional public services are some of the challenges confronting young people in Iraq.
“Even the staunchest Russian novelist might be hard pressed to match the particular gift for dysfunction that the Wilcoxes, subjects of Jess Row’s sprawling metafiction The New Earth, display with such impressive esprit de corps across nearly 600 dense and often wildly discursive pages … It’s all richly imagined, reflexively neurotic and frequently quite dazzling.
The report said that 2022 "witnessed a landmark setback for U.S. human rights," and cited a climate where "money politics, racial discrimination, gun and police violence, and wealth polarization are rampant." The contents of the report delve into the country's " dysfunctional civil rights protection system," a "hollowed-out American-style electoral democracy," "growing racial discrimination and inequality," "worsening subsistence crisis among U.S. underclass," "historic retrogression in women's and children's rights" and finally "wanton violation of other countries' human rights and trampling on justice."
"What the parliament has done today is brought an end to 10 years of dysfunction and 10 years of delay."
Humanity has gotten better at responding to small emergencies like big building fires, small storms, and blizzards, but when it comes to large-scale disasters - such as nuclear incidents - our abilities to respond remains " dysfunctional ," he explained, "because we're not prepared for them".
When I told the woman that I had a difficult time with twists because of the masses in my abdomen, her look changed, became more . . . knowing. Fibroids, she informed me, are the result of a dysfunctional relationship with one’s father. Did I have a difficult relationship with my dad? she asked, offering me an adjustment as I tried to do my best downward dog. Taken aback, I focussed for a few moments on the mat below, on my hands, spread out beneath me. “I guess I do,” I said. “Don’t we all?”
For about half the book, which proceeds linearly from her upbringing in Oregon to the present, this is indeed the shape the memoir takes — and where it is at its strongest. That her father wasn't approved for Medicaid or Social Security Disability Insurance until he was "gravely ill" speaks to the system's dysfunction . "It is still hard for me not to think of my father's death as a kind of negligent homicide, facilitated and sped by the state's failure to fulfill its most basic responsibilities to him and others like him," Chung writes, nailing how her father's "common American death" evidences how easy it is to slip through the gaping holes in our safety net.
The gap continues to widen. Billions of people are suffering from rising living costs and stagnant wages, and with recession looming, prospects for achieving greater prosperity appear bleak. The world has never been so wealthy, yet most people endure chronic economic insecurity. This is a recipe for deeply polarized, dysfunctional societies, democratic decay, and a dangerously unstable world.
Perhaps we should be grateful that they haven’t reverted to the dysfunction and leadership crises of last year, but most people probably prefer the prime minister who started this year to the one who is now responsible for a series of empty headline-grabbing initiatives.
“Maybe this crisis is an opportunity to debate the dysfunctions of the Fifth Republic. We will need to do it politically, but that means it must come from the (presidential) majority as well as the opposition,” Mulier said.
Ultimately, being entrusted with a business by people who share your DNA is something you ought to earn, not expect. As the adage goes, “A family business is not a business you inherit from your parents, it is a business you borrow from your children.” Disregard for this nugget of wisdom is what makes “Succession” such riveting television—and Waystar Royco so dysfunctional .
“Symptoms become increasingly severe and can include jaundice, inflammation of the pancreas, severe weight loss, delirium, shock, liver failure, massive hemorrhaging, and multi-organ dysfunction .”
“Even in the United States, which has a soft spot for royals in exile and a generally higher tolerance than Britain does for redemptive stories about overcoming trauma and family dysfunction ,” Sarah Lyall wrote in the New York Times, “there is a sense that there are only so many revelations the public can stomach.”
The point of the story is not the final promposal itself but the marvelous journey we are allowed to take with Garrett's well-developed and diverting teen characters. I also appreciated how involved and supportive Amber's parents were — a refreshing change from the often dysfunctional relationships we see.
As a result, the BOJ had to sustain ultra-loose policy for a prolonged period despite rising costs such as the pain on banks and dysfunction caused in the bond market, he said.
Xi Jinping, China’s leader, will be keen, too, to exploit any Trump revival to advance his plans for global hegemony and an authoritarian new world order. Beijing’s propaganda feeds off US domestic dysfunction , Washington gridlock, corruption, racial tensions and gun crime – to which Trump and his Maga minions contribute hugely.
“This is the ‘find it, fix it', or biomedical model, of pain,” said Chris Johnson, a physical therapist in Seattle. This model suggests that pain is primarily a physical phenomenon caused by tissue damage or dysfunction , which can be identified and resolved through surgical repair.
“We have peace, but no reconciliation,” said John Barry, a political scientist at Queen’s University Belfast. “We have become used to dysfunction .”
Ahead of the Biden administration’s democracy brouhaha, China couldn’t have found a more opportune moment – the 20th anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq on March 20 – to release a damning report against Washington. The report, published by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, entitled, ‘The State of Democracy in the United States: 2022’ is a trenchant criticism of the “ dysfunctional ” American democracy and how it has had a cascading chaotic effect on the world at large.
During this period, Afghanistan was coined a “failed state”, where warlords and their militias violently carved fiefdoms with no accountability to a dysfunctional government. It was the anarchy and lawlessness of the civil war that cultivated the perfect environment for Al-Qaeda to find safe haven in Afghanistan and plan the September 11 attacks against the United States.
The Provisional IRA is fading into history and loyalist groups do not menace Catholics. But a less deadly form of paramilitarism remains woven into society, reflecting and aggravating political dysfunction . Petrol bombs and punishment beatings: paramilitaries still rooted in Northern Ireland Read more Women who helped strike Good Friday deal finally recognised – 25 years late It took a quarter of a century but Mo Mowlam and other women who helped clinch the Good Friday agreement are finally gaining recognition.
“Our state is broken, and our society is dysfunctional ,” he said. “These massive structural problems cannot be overcome by a single election, though a free, fair and truly representative election can throw up a political leadership that can start working on addressing these problems.”
When Jaffee retired from cartooning in 2020 — at age 99 — he told The Washington Post that the job never felt onerous, because he loved his brush-wielding line of work: drawing attention to society’s dysfunction and malfunctions through the lens of comedy.
Northern Ireland has for nearly a year had no elected government at Stormont, the grand parliament building overlooking Belfast. It has no annual budget either — only red ink, rising in a sea of dysfunction . And thanks to Brexit, the U.K.’s most socially divided region this month lost tens of millions in annual European Union funds that had sustained the poorest communities.
To be diagnosed with the disorder, a person must have no other issues that might cause a change in libido, such as erectile dysfunction or premature ejaculation.