Relating to, affected by, or having the characteristics of dropsy (an abnormal accumulation of fluid in body tissues).
From 'dropsy' (from Greek 'hydropsia') with the adjectival suffix '-ical,' creating the medical adjective form used in clinical descriptions.
Medieval doctors didn't understand the mechanisms behind dropsy, so they called any fluid buildup 'dropsy,' and the word persisted even as medicine discovered the underlying causes—it's still used today for swelling caused by fluid retention.
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