In medicine, a symptom (Greek symptoma = a happening, befall) refers to a change in body function or sensation, like weakness or pain, as experienced by a patient (1).

Patient’s description of symptoms and their time course is called medical history. To establish a diagnosis, a physician will, apart from subjective symptoms, often need to check for objective signs of disease with physical examination of the patient and medical investigations.

Symptoms may be acute (sudden, newly appearing), chronic (long lasting), remittent (temporary decreasing in severity), intermittent (ceasing completely and beginning again; from Latin inter- + mittere = to let go), or relapsing (recurring after a period of improvement; from Latin re- = back + labi = to slip).

Symptomatic disease appears with symptoms, and asymptomatic disease without symptoms.

References:

  1. What symptom stands for? (dictionary.com)