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

Page 27Captain Lope de Llanos kisses your Lordship's hands; he is very ill with quartan ague.

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 09 of 55 1593-1597 Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century by Robertson, James Alexander

She is pining away under a quartan ague.

From The Little Clay Cart Mrcchakatika by Ryder, Arthur William

Symptoms.—The symptoms of all these are the same, except that in tertian fever, the paroxysms occur every third day; in quartan they occur every fourth day.

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

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 White, Gleeson