noun

• 1A mild form of epilepsy characterized by brief spells of unconsciousness without loss of posture.

  Compare with grand mal

  ‘This led in particular to a more detailed differentiation and classification of epilepsy, including terms still in use today, such as grand mal, petit mal, absence seizures, and status epilepticus.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Doctors dispelled the depression as an extensive form of epilepsy, petit mal.’
  • ‘The terms seizure and convulsion include grand mal, petit mal, absence, myoclonic, tonic-clonic, and focal motor seizures and signs.’
  • ‘Nocturnal seizures can be grand mal, petit mal, partial-complex, vegetative or paroxysmal nocturnal dystonias.’
  • ‘Epilepsy is called grand mal (major illness) or petit mal also called absence attacks.’

  1. 1.1A petit mal epileptic fit.
     ‘he wasn't out of his petit mal yet’
     More example sentences

     • ‘I myself had pediatric petit mal epilepsy (It cleared as I went through puberty), and when I had my first long lasting seizure it was actually pretty undramatic.’
     • ‘We're not too sure whether James had a petit mal seizure, (he suffers from epilepsy), on the bus on the way home from his post school option program.’
     • ‘A is epileptic; he had daily petit mal seizures as a child which would case memory loss, so he is an unreliable witness.’
     • ‘On seeing it, I thought that it might have been a petit mal epileptic seizure, but the reports seem to rule that out.’
     • ‘I can see some spark of petit mal beginning in those snuffles over there.’