king's evil
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of king's evil
1350–1400; Middle English kynges evel
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.
Sometimes the cost of a journey to London was defrayed by the parish in order to enable a sufferer to be touched for the king’s evil.
From English Villages by Ditchfield, P. H. (Peter Hampson)
He has written on the smallpox, with a vehement invective against inoculation; on consumptions, the spleen, the gout, the rheumatism, the king’s evil, the dropsy, the jaundice, the stone, the diabetes, and the plague.
From The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II by Johnson, Samuel
The power attached to them for this form of ailment was similar to that which the king's touch had for scrofula or the king's evil.
From Psychotherapy by Walsh, James J. (James Joseph)
As the French language does not contain any such word as estroilles, there can be no doubt that it stands for old French escroilles, or the king's evil.
From Literary Blunders by Wheatley, Henry Benjamin
In the postscript he adds an account of a well, which by washing, wrought a cure on a person deep in the king’s evil.
From Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 by Disraeli, Isaac
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.
