typhus
pronunciation
How to pronounce typhus in British English:
UK [ˈtaɪfəs]
How to pronounce typhus in American English:
US [ˈtaɪfəs]
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- Noun:
- rickettsial disease transmitted by body lice and characterized by skin rash and high fever
Word Origin
- typhus
- typhus: see stew
- typhus (n.)
- acute infectious fever, usually accompanied by prostration, delirium, and small reddish spots, 1785, from medical Latin, from Greek typhos "stupor caused by fever," literally "smoke," from typhein "to smoke," related to typhos "blind," typhon "whirlwind," from PIE *dheubh-, perhaps an extended form of root *dheu- (1) "to fly about like dust." The Greek term [typhos] (smoke, mist, fog) was employed by Hippocrates to define a confused state of the intellect, with a tendency to stupor (stupor attonitus); and in this sense it is aptly applied to typhus fever with its slow cerebration and drowsy stupor. Boissier de Sauvages first (in 1760) called this fever "typhus," and the name was adopted by Cullen of Edinburgh in 1769. Previous to the time of de Sauvages typhus was known as "Pestilential" or "Putrid Fever," or by some name suggested by the eruption, or expressive of the locality in which it appeared, as "Camp," "Jail," "Hospital," or "Ship Fever" (Murchison). [Thomas Clifford, ed., "A System of Medicine," New York, 1897] Related: typhous (adj.).
Example
- 1. Albert schweitzer used it to treat cholera and typhus .
- 2. Typhoid and typhus are both highly infectious diseases .
- 3. To stand a potential typhus epidemic .
- 4. The germs that cause typhus and bubonic plague are carried by fleas and lice .
- 5. They caught the typhus and died .