Having anaemia, or figuratively, pale and lacking vitality, the adjective clinicians use to describe both the patient and the characteristic appearance. An anaemic person shows the classic signs: washed-out skin, pale conjunctiva inside the eyelids, brittle nails, and the fatigue that comes from tissues starved of oxygen. The word also appears in laboratory reports describing anaemic blood samples with low hemoglobin or red cell counts. Beyond medicine, writers borrow it to describe anything feeble or colorless, from an anaemic performance to an anaemic argument. In nutrition practice, recognizing the anaemic appearance prompts the dietary history and blood tests that distinguish iron deficiency from other causes, since the pallor itself reveals nothing about which nutrient or disease is responsible.