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plant reaction to a disease or disorder (e.g. . wilting. dieback) (contrast with sign).

symptom (Wikipedia)

Signs and symptoms are the observed or detectable signs, and experienced symptoms of an illness, injury, or condition.

A diagram of a human torso labelled with the most common symptoms of an acute HIV infection
Signs (including enlarged liver and spleen) and symptoms (including headache and vomiting) of acute HIV infection

Signs are objective and externally observable; symptoms are a person's reported subjective experiences.

A sign for example may be a higher or lower temperature than normal, raised or lowered blood pressure or an abnormality showing on a medical scan. A symptom is something out of the ordinary that is experienced by an individual such as feeling feverish, a headache or other pains in the body.

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