The concept of insidious is used to describe what is done with artifice or deception , or that serves to generate harmful schemes . The term, from the Latin word insidiōsus , is also used to refer to something 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 cast members" , "An insidious campaign caused the president's image to fall" .
Suppose that, in a press conference, the technical director of a football team that was defeated states 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 capture on the playing field. . Minutes later, a reporter tells a soccer player that the coach stated that the players do not have a good level and that they cannot understand his ideas. Thus, by distorting the coach's words, the journalist seeks to generate a controversy. That is why it can be argued that the comment he made to the player was insidious .
In the field of medicine , on the other hand, insidious is a disorder or disease that initially appears benign but, in reality, hides a more serious condition . Insidious diseases begin slowly, without obvious symptoms, so the patient is not aware of the condition they are suffering from.
Basalioma , for example, has an insidious beginning: small nodules appear first, although they later increase in volume . It is the most common skin tumor.
A disease that has an insidious and slow onset is Alzheimer's. It is one of the worst conditions that a person can suffer in old age , since it leads to the degeneration of their brain, progressively leading them 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 of 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 lungs.
Other parts of the body in which the development of sarcoidosis usually occurs are organs such as the heart, skin and eyes. When sarcoidosis occurs acutely, the period of deterioration is very short: in a matter of a few weeks, the individual exhibits problems in the organ(s) where the cell accumulations are occurring.
However, if sarcoidosis appears insidiously, then the time 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 form usually becomes chronic.
Since the word insidious is not very frequently used in everyday speech, it is necessary to resort to its synonyms to find easier to understand examples. Among the most used are the following: deceitful, traitor, alarmist, liar, cunning, scheming, malicious and deceitful . At the opposite extreme we have the antonyms sincere and frank .
As we can see, all synonyms have negative connotations with respect to the subject's intentions towards a third party: the insidious individual has bad intentions, does not keep his word, pursues deception with cunning, generates intrigue and always has confusing speech. In short, it is the opposite profile of an honest person.