Also called typhoid fever.an infectious, often fatal, febrile disease, usually of the summer months, characterized by intestinal inflammation and ulceration, caused by the typhoid bacillus, which is usually introduced with food or drink.
1800, literally "resembling typhus," from typhus + suffix from Greek -oeides "like," from eidos "form, shape" (see -oid). The noun is from 1861, a shortened form of typhoid fever (1845), so called because it was originally thought to be a variety of typhus. Typhoid Mary (1909) was Mary Mallon (d.1938), a typhoid carrier who worked as a cook and became notorious after it was learned she had unwittingly infected hundreds in U.S.
