measles

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The source of the measles was a child from India who arrived March 7 in the United States.

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Definitions (20)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (5)

  1. noun An acute, contagious viral disease, usually occurring in childhood and characterized by eruption of red spots on the skin, fever, and catarrhal symptoms. Also called rubeola.
  2. noun Black measles.
  3. noun Any of several other diseases, especially German measles, that cause similar but milder symptoms.
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Examples (50)

  • But it's like the measles--you're very nearly certain to contract it once in a lifetime Have you no pity for me?" —  The Doctor of Pimlico Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime
  • It may, like the measles or the South Sea Bubble, run its course and that will end it; on the other hand, it may grow to such proportions that it will shut out all human endeavor and bring commercial pursuits to a complete standstill. —  A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel
  • Maudie Ducker and Mildred Bates had the measles, and could not recite, which left only four reciters. —  The Second Chance
  • Infantry's kept home from school to-day--measles, I reckon, or maybe it's lockjaw About three o'clock there was caught from the southward, between the loud wrangling of the batteries above White Oak, another sound,--first two or three detonations occurring singly, then a prolonged and continuous roar. —  The Long Roll
  • Then the epidemic diseases--measles, scarlet fever, meningitis. —  The House of Torchy
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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English maseles, mesels, pl. of masel, measles-spot, of Middle Low German origin.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Early modern English also measels, meazles, meazels, measils, maisils, maysilles; rarely and erroneously in singular (in sense 1), early modern English mesyll, masul, mazil; from Middle English meseles, maseles, meselle, mesylle, measles (glossing Middle Latin morbillus, serpedo, variola, Old French rugeroles), from Middle Dutch maselen, masselen. also maseren, masseren = German masern, measles, literally ‘little spots’ (cf. smallpox, orig. small pocks, ‘little pustules’), plural of Middle Dutch *masel, maschel = Middle Low German masele, massele, a spot, eruption, pustule, = Old High German masala, a bloody tumor, German maser, a spot, speckle, as on wood or on the skin; diminutive of Middle Dutch *mase = Middle Low German mase = Old High German māsa, Middle High German māse, German mase, a spot, the mark of a wound; whence also ult. mazer, a bowl orig.of spotted wood: see mazer. The word measles, Middle English meseles, masales, is entirely distinct from Middle English mesel, a leper, whence meselry, leprosy, but has been more or less confused with it, as in Middle Dutch masel-sucht, Middle Low German masel-, massel-, mesel-sucht, -suke, defined as “the measell-sicknesse” (Hexam), or measles, but properly the ‘leper-sickness,’ or leprosy. The words mesel, meselry became nearly obsolete before the 17th century; in Middle English the words were pronounced differently. Hence the equivalent mcaslings, q. v. The singular measle (def. 1, above) appears to have been developed from the plural (which is now used as singular), in the sense ‘a spot like those of measles,’ and not in the orig. literally sense (in Middle Dutch, etc.) of ‘a little spot.’
 

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/ˈmizlz/
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