psittacosis

American  

[sit-uh-koh-sis] / ˌsɪt əˈkoʊ sɪs /

noun

Pathology.

1. a rickettsial disease affecting birds of the parrot family, pigeons, and domestic fowl, caused by the chlamydia Chlamydia psittaci and transmissible to humans.

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psittacosis British  

/ ˌsɪtəˈkəʊsɪs /

noun

1. Also called: parrot fever.   ornithosis.  a disease of parrots, caused by the obligate intracellular parasite Chlamydia psittaci, that can be transmitted to man, in whom it produces inflammation of the lungs and pneumonia

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Etymology

Origin of psittacosis

1895–1900; < Latin psittac ( us ) parrot (< Greek psittakós ) + -osis

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

psittacosis

Surgeon General Hugh S. Gumming, to protect other laboratory workers from the contagion, decided to move further psittacosis research to some isolated quarantine island along the Atlantic seaboard.

From Time Magazine Archive

From Pandora's box of diseases, one, psittacosis, a stranger in the U. S., escaped last week.

From Time Magazine Archive

Before the discovery of antibiotics, psittacosis was unbeatable, killed scores of people in the U.S.

From Time Magazine Archive

Meantime Pittsburgh seethed with rumors of a psittacosis epidemic at McCreery's.

From Time Magazine Archive

They include cat scratch fever from our cats, leptospirosis from our dogs, psittacosis from our chickens and parrots, and brucellosis from our cattle.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond