king's evil

American  

noun

1. scrofula: so called because it was supposed to be curable by the touch of the reigning sovereign.

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king's evil British  

noun

1. pathol a former name for scrofula

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Etymology

Origin of king's evil

1350–1400; Middle English kynges evel

Example Sentences

Stephen King’s evil clown Pennywise returns in the full trailer for this year’s big screen adaptation of It.

From The Guardian

Just to add difficulty to her next run as president, she decides to cultivate several Very Serious Medical Ailments, including but not limited to at least eight strokes, dropsy and the King’s Evil.

From Washington Post

Among the terrible losses from infant and childhood diseases and such exotic illnesses as “the rising of lights” and “the King’s evil,” we find that, of 9,535 deaths, 13 people succumbed to “planet,” more than died of cancer.

From Literature

Notices the analogies between our moral and æsthetical judgments, 77 King's evil, ceremony of touching for the, i.

From Project Gutenberg

“As it has been thought,” says Holinshed, in writing of the king, “he was inspired with the gift of prophecy, and also to have the gift of healing infirmities and disease commonly called the king’s evil, and left that virtue, as it were, a portion of inheritance to his successors, the kings of this realm.”

From Project Gutenberg