adjective
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having leprosy
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relating to or resembling leprosy
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biology a less common word for leprose
Usage
What does leprous mean? Leprous is an adjective used to describe someone with leprosy, an infectious skin disease. Leprous can also mean resembling or relating to leprosy. Leprosy causes bumps and wounds on and under the skin that gradually spread and can cause muscle weakness, nerve damage, and paralysis. If not treated effectively, it can result in the loss of body parts and eventually death. Leprosy is also called Hansen’s disease, which is the name preferred by many medical professionals. It’s caused by a kind of bacteria called Mycobacterium leprae. It can be cured with a treatment of antibiotics and other drugs. Cases of leprosy have been documented since ancient times. Due to its severe effects and contagiousness, many people who have had the disease throughout history have been stigmatized and treated as outcasts. Historically, the word leper has been used to refer to a person with leprosy. Due to the stigma, it came to be used in a more figurative way to mean an outcast or someone who is excluded, especially for behavior or opinions considered unacceptable. Though it’s much less common, the adjective leprous can also be used in this way, as in Ever since I expressed my opinion, I’ve been treated as leprous around here. However, both the figurative and literal senses of leper can be considered insensitive due to the fact that they can dehumanize those who have the disease. Although the term leprous patient is sometimes used to refer to someone with the disease, it is typically recommended to use a phrase like “a person with Hansen’s disease.”
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of leprous
First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English word from Late Latin word leprōsus. See leper, -ous
Vocabulary lists containing leprous
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The whole surroundings being Leprous, it is difficult to see how the good Father could well have avoided contamination.
From The Leper in England: with some account of English lazar-houses by Hope, Robert Charles
Employed in venereal and Leprous disorders, scrofula, and scurvy.
From The Leper in England: with some account of English lazar-houses by Hope, Robert Charles
In 1491, Robert Pigot gave by will to the Leper House of Walsingham, in the Archdeaconry of Norwich, a house in, or near that town, for the use of two Leprous persons “of good families.”
From The Leper in England: with some account of English lazar-houses by Hope, Robert Charles
They were talking about some Russian novel—a name like Leprous Souls—and she asked me if I had read it.
From Mr. Standfast by Buchan, John
They hadn't much use for books, except some Russian ones, and I acquired merit in their eyes for having read Leprous Souls.
From Mr. Standfast by Buchan, John
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
