smallpox
an acute, highly contagious, febrile disease, caused by the variola virus, and characterized by a pustular eruption that often leaves permanent pits or scars: eradicated worldwide by vaccination programs.
Origin of smallpox
1Words Nearby smallpox
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use smallpox in a sentence
How Onesimus introduced inoculation to America, saving hundreds of lives during the smallpox epidemic.
The story of vaccines in America starts with an enslaved African man | Joel Christian Gill | February 12, 2021 | VoxMore contagious than Covid-19 and with a 30 percent mortality rate, smallpox was one of history’s biggest killers.
Smallpox used to kill millions of people every year. Here’s how humans beat it. | Kelsey Piper | February 5, 2021 | VoxIn the 1960s, around 60% of the world’s smallpox cases were reported in India.
Why India just might pull off ‘the world’s largest vaccination program’ | Naomi Xu Elegant | January 15, 2021 | FortuneBefore then, inoculations were done by giving patients a small dose of the actual smallpox virus, hoping that they would get a mild case and then be immune.
mRNA Technology Gave Us the First COVID-19 Vaccines. It Could Also Upend the Drug Industry | Walter Isaacson | January 11, 2021 | TimeWith the exception of the smallpox vaccine, which can cause a rare but serious infection of the fetus, vaccines have been safe and enormously beneficial for pregnant women and their babies.
Pregnant women agonize over whether to get coronavirus vaccine | Frances Stead Sellers | January 1, 2021 | Washington Post
The commander of the Continental Army realized that if he did not inoculate his army against smallpox, he might not have an army.
In many places, it was custom to place huts outside the villages for smallpox victims.
For example, vaccinia immune globulin, or VIG, is stored and ready for the next person who becomes ill from smallpox vaccine.
In the 18th century, German immigrants coming to Pennsylvania boarded ships plagued with typhus, dysentery, smallpox, and scurvy.
Shoham adds without substantive evidence that “Syrian possession of the smallpox virus is likely.”
Western Intelligence Suspects Assad Has a Secret Chemical Stockpile | Noah Shachtman, Christopher Dickey | May 1, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTTo-day men of science are trying to conquer the horrors of cancer and smallpox, and rabies and consumption.
God and my Neighbour | Robert BlatchfordThis barkeeper had not been exposed to smallpox except by contact with the man mentioned here.
Essays In Pastoral Medicine | Austin MalleyThe unharmed had been present in sick-rooms or had even nursed the patients, not knowing that the disease was smallpox.
Essays In Pastoral Medicine | Austin MalleyIt does more: in 90 per centum of cases it will prevent successful infection with smallpox.
Essays In Pastoral Medicine | Austin MalleyThe mildest smallpox in one person can cause malignant smallpox in another, and vice versa.
Essays In Pastoral Medicine | Austin Malley
British Dictionary definitions for smallpox
/ (ˈsmɔːlˌpɒks) /
an acute highly contagious viral disease characterized by high fever, severe prostration, and a pinkish rash changing in form from papules to pustules, which dry up and form scabs that are cast off, leaving pitted depressions: Technical name: variola Related adjective: variolous
Origin of smallpox
1Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Scientific definitions for smallpox
[ smôl′pŏks′ ]
A highly infectious and often fatal disease caused by the variola virus of the genus Orthopoxvirus and characterized by fever, headache, and severely inflamed skin sores that result in extensive scarring. Once a dreaded killer of children that caused the deaths of millions of Native Americans after the arrival of European settlers in the Americas, smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980 following a worldwide vaccination campaign. Samples of the virus have been preserved in laboratories in the United States and Russia. Also called variola See Note at Jenner.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Cultural definitions for smallpox
An acute and infectious disease caused by a virus and now almost completely eradicated. Smallpox was characterized by high fever and large sores on the body that leave scars.
Notes for smallpox
Notes for smallpox
Notes for smallpox
Notes for smallpox
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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