chicken pox

Cultural

A mild but highly contagious disease, caused by a virus and characterized by slight fever and the eruption of blisters on the skin. Chicken pox is classified as a disease of childhood, although it can occur in adults.

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Children who have had chicken pox are immune to future infection by the virus that causes it.

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When someone gets chicken pox, usually in childhood, the virus does not fully leave the body.

From Science Daily • Dec. 3, 2025

At first, the Alberta mother assumed it was a common side effect of immunisations - or perhaps a case of chicken pox.

From BBC • Jul. 20, 2025

Nor was it ever used in vaccines against chicken pox, polio or pneumonia.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 1, 2025

So it keeps passing along like it's chicken pox.

From Salon • Aug. 6, 2024

It can’t be a dirty, silly thing like chicken pox.

From "The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023