cholera
- Also called Asiatic cholera. Pathology. an acute, infectious disease, endemic in India and China and occasionally epidemic elsewhere, characterized by profuse diarrhea, vomiting, cramps, etc.
- Veterinary Pathology. any of several diseases of domesticated animals that are characterized by depression, sleepiness, lack of appetite, and diarrhea.Compare fowl cholera, hog cholera.
Origin of cholera
Examples from the Web for cholera
Contemporary Examples
This method works for TB, for cholera, for rabid animals—for just about everything.
Cholera and typhoid fever are transmitted when I ingest contaminated food or drink.
When multiple cases of watery diarrhea spread through one village, doctors feared it was cholera.
Cholera and typhoid were rampant and overseers used pick handles to physically force miners into the shafts.
At the time, New Orleans was a breeding ground for yellow fever and cholera.
Historical Examples
This attack proved to be the cholera, which came near carrying me off.
Ned MyersJames Fenimore Cooper
In May, 1869, the Gambia was visited by a severe epidemic of cholera.
The History of the First West India RegimentA. B. Ellis
People are dying of cholera in New York at the rate of 353 a day.
Then, too, when our artist friend was with us we were in the grasp of an epidemic of cholera.
Lotus BudsAmy Carmichael
Then cholera swept our countryside, and we heard she had taken it and died.
Lotus BudsAmy Carmichael
cholera
- an acute intestinal infection characterized by severe diarrhoea, cramp, etc: caused by ingestion of water or food contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio commaAlso called: Asiatic cholera, epidemic cholera, Indian cholera
Word Origin
Word Origin and History for cholera
n.
late 14c., "bile, melancholy" (originally the same as choler), from Middle French cholera or directly from Late Latin cholera, from Greek kholera "a type of disease characterized by diarrhea, supposedly caused by choler" (Celsus), from khole "gall, bile," from khloazein "to be green," from khloros (see Chloe). But another sense of khole was "drainpipe, gutter."
Revived 1560s in classical sense as a name for a severe digestive disorder (rarely fatal to adults); and 1704 (especially as cholera morbus), for a highly lethal disease endemic in India, periodically breaking out in global epidemics, especially that reaching Britain and America in the early 1830s.
cholera
(kŏl′ər-ə)- An acute epidemic infectious disease caused by Vibrio cholerae, characterized by profuse watery diarrhea, extreme loss of fluid and electrolytes, and prostration.
- Any of various diseases of domesticated animals marked by severe gastroenteritis.
cholera
- An infectious, sometimes fatal disease of the small intestine caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. It is spread from contaminated water and food and causes severe diarrhea, vomiting, and dehydration.
cholera
An acute disease, and an infectious disease, caused by a kind of bacterium that affects the intestines. Transmitted by food or water that has been contaminated with raw sewage, cholera is often fatal and is characterized by severe vomiting, diarrhea, and collapse.