quartan

American  

[kwawr-tn] / ˈkwɔr tn /

adjective

1. (of a fever, ague, etc.) characterized by paroxysms that recur every fourth day, both days of consecutive occurrence being counted.

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noun

1. a quartan fever or ague.

2. quartan malaria.

quartan British  

/ ˈkwɔːtən /

adjective

1. (esp of a malarial fever) occurring every third day

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Etymology

Origin of quartan

1250–1300; Middle English quartaine < Old French < Latin ( febris ) quartāna quartan (fever), feminine of quartānus, equivalent to quart ( us ) fourth + -ānus -an

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

quartan

The malaria was the quartan type and gave the Saint a chill every four days during the last twelve years of his life.

From Time Magazine Archive

Bishop Roger the same year, according to one chronicler, "by the kindness of death, escaped the quartan ague which had long afflicted him, and died broken-hearted."

From Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum by Gleeson White

Brair sat by the cheek of the peat-fire and shivered, for he had a quartan ague and this was his day. 

From Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson

The periods of quartan fevers return at solar intervals of seventy-two hours, or at lunar ones of about seventy-four hours and an half.

From Zoonomia, Vol. I Or, the Laws of Organic Life by Erasmus Darwin

Five grains three times a day will nearly always cure tertian and quartan cases, especially if the patient is kept in bed until the time for one or two paroxysms has passed.

From Mother's Remedies Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers of the United States and Canada by Thomas Jefferson Ritter