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

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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)

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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

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

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

There was plenty of rheum at the top.

From Time Magazine Archive

Ulenspiegel made answer: “I come from Rome, where I healed the Pope’s dog of a sorry rheum that grieved him sore.”

From The Legend of Ulenspiegel, Volume I (of 2) And Lamme Goedzak, and their Adventures Heroical, Joyous and Glorious in the Land of Flanders and Elsewhere by Charles Th?odore Henri de Coster

They affirmed it was an antidote to all poison; that it expelled rheums, sour humours, and obstructions of all kinds.

From Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce by E. R. Billings

And that what we vulgarly call rheums, and colds, and distillations, is nothing else but an epidemical looseness to which that little commonwealth is very subject from the climate it lies under.

From Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. by George Bell

So may rheums and catarrhs be far from you, and may your hearth be crowned with content!

From Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) by A. H. (Arthur Henry) Bullen

Now have we many chimnies; and yet out tender**** complain of rheums, catarrhs, and poses; then had we none but reredosses, and our heads did never ache.

From The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. From Henry VII. to Mary by David Hume

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 Mark Twain

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