chronic wasting disease

Meanings

1. A transmissible spongiform encephalopathy found in deer, typified by chronic weight loss leading to death.
2. Any of various chronic diseases that involve wasting in various animals, human or nonhuman.

Etymology

The common-noun sense that functions as a hypernym over the names of various specific diseases predates the sense naming one specific disease in deer. The latter sense appears to have evolved through misparsing in which the former was misinterpreted as being the latter; but it is now an established term for that specific disease (thus, a fait accompli).