rheum

American  

[room] / rum /

noun

• rheums
  plural

1. a thin discharge of the mucous membranes, especially during a cold.

2. catarrh; cold.

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rheum British  

/ ruːm /

noun

1. a watery discharge from the eyes or nose

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• rheumic
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• rheums
  plural

Etymology

Origin of rheum

1350–1400; Middle English reume < Late Latin rheuma < Greek rheûma ( rheu-, variant stem of rheîn to flow, stream + -ma noun suffix of result)

Explanation

Rheum is an old-fashioned word for the watery discharge that drips from your nose and eyes when you have a cold or allergies. You may come across the word rheum in 19th-century novels, or your doctor might use the term to describe your cold symptoms. It’s not the word you’d use in everyday speech, though. You wouldn't say, "My allergies are really acting up. Please excuse the rheum streaming down my face." But you might use the adjective rheumy to describe your dog's runny eyes or even your own. The word comes from the Greek rheuma, meaning "a stream, or current."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

rheum rheums

Surprised and relieved that he could see me through all that rheum, I said, “How come?”

From Salon ● Jan. 28, 2014

There was plenty of rheum at the top.

From Time Magazine Archive

Of "pocketable" bulk, it is a creature to fend for its weekending master or mistress against all skulking shapes of boredom, unsociability, indisposedness and even of palatal lassitude and the "thin rheum."

From Time Magazine Archive

One of his comrades was drowned in a river whirlpool; he himself nigh died of a jungle rheum.

From Time Magazine Archive

If I may query put, what mental rheum Did cause selection of such vacuous mind To fill a post requiring mental grasp?

From 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts by Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)

I could say what I know of the virtue of it, for the expulsion of rheums, raw humours, crudities, obstructions, with a thousand of this kind; but I profess myself no quack-salver.

From Every Man in His Humor by Jonson, Ben

Are you fond of coughs, colds, dyspepsia and rheums?

From Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 The advocate of Industry and Journal of Scientific, Mechanical and Other Improvements by Porter, Rufus

About the vernal equinox, however, I caught a violent cold, which was attended with a difficulty of breathing, and as the sun advances towards the tropic, I find myself still more subject to rheums.

From Travels through France and Italy by Smollett, T. (Tobias)

Now have we many chimneys; and yet our tenderlings complain of rheums, catarrhs, and poses.

From Elizabethan England From 'A Description of England,' by William Harrison by Harrison, William

See, now, how like a man it was to let him lie here uncovered and fill his body with deadly rheums.

From The Prince and the Pauper, Part 4. by Twain, Mark