Neuropathy is usually short for peripheral neuropathy, meaning a disease of the peripheral nerve or nerves.
The four major forms of nerve damage are polyneuropathy, autonomic neuropathy, mononeuropathy, and mononeuritis multiplex. The most common form is peripheral polyneuropathy, which mainly affects the feet and legs.

Often the form of neuropathy is further broken down as to cause (see below), or other type, such as small fiber peripheral neuropathy, which is idiopathic.

There are other less common forms of neuropathy, for example Enteric Neuropathy

Aside from diabetes (see Diabetic neuropathy), the common causes of neuropathy are herpes zoster infection, HIV-AIDS, toxins, alcoholism, chronic trauma (such as repetitive motion disorders) or acute trauma (including surgery), various neurotoxins and autoimmune conditions such as celiac disease, which can account for approximately 16% of small fiber neuropathy cases. Neuropathic pain is common in cancer as a direct result of the cancer on peripheral nerves (e.g., compression by a tumor), as a side effect of many chemotherapy drugs, and as a result of electrical injury. In many cases the neuropathy is "idiopathic," meaning no cause is found. A form of spinal nerve entrapment called Posterior Rami Syndrome can lead to neuropathic pain.
Neuropathy often results in numbness, abnormal sensations called dysesthesias and allodynias that occur either spontaneously or in reaction to external stimuli, and a characteristic form of pain, called neuropathic pain or neuralgia, that is qualitatively different from the ordinary nociceptive pain one might experience from stubbing a toe or hitting a finger with a hammer.

Neuropathic pain is usually perceived as a steady burning and/or "pins and needles" and/or "electric shock" sensations and/or tickling. The difference is due to the fact that "ordinary" pain stimulates only pain nerves, while a neuropathy often results in the firing of both pain and non-pain (touch, warm, cool) sensory nerves in the same area, producing signals that the spinal cord and brain do not normally expect to receive.