Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Inflammation of the pleura, usually occurring as a complication of a disease such as pneumonia, accompanied by accumulation of fluid in the pleural cavity, chills, fever, and painful breathing and coughing.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Inflammation of the pleura. It may be acute or chronic, and may or may not be accompanied by effusion. The effusion may be serous, seropurulent, purulent, or hemorrhagic. Also called
pleuritis .
Wiktionary
- n. pathology Inflammation of lung pleura.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Med.) An inflammation of the pleura, usually accompanied with fever, pain, difficult respiration, and cough, and with exudation into the pleural cavity.
WordNet 3.0
- n. inflammation of the pleura of the lungs (especially the parietal layer)
Etymologies
- Middle English pluresy, from Old French pleuresie, from Late Latin pleurīsis, alteration of Latin pleurītis, from Greek : pleura, side + -ītis, -itis. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“He sang about grannies in relation to public transport, enormous jobbies and wellington boots and managed to rhyme the word pleurisy with infirmary.”
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph
“If man does not shun and turn away from evils as sins, therefore, the external and at the same time the internal of his thought and will are infected and destroyed, comparatively as the pleura is by the disease in it called pleurisy, of which the body dies.”
“I apparently have something called pleurisy, which, although it sounds like something you'd catch from a frisky co-ed after an all-night kegger, is actually inflammation of the lining of your lungs.”
“But theory cares nothing for this; it calls pleurisy a more serious mischief than a stumble; yet the latter may become incidentally the more serious, if the fall due to it leads to your being taken prisoner or put to death the enemy.)”
“Besides the fever, he suffered from a pain in the side, which the Greeks call pleurisy; but he still persisted in fasting, and in keeping up his strength only by draughts taken at very long intervals.”
“This flower has a variety of names: it is called pleurisy root, and wind root, and orange root.”
“The uneasiness attending this hot paroxysm of fever, or fit of exertion, is very different from that, which attends the previous cold fit, or fit of quiescence, and is frequently the cause of inflammation, as in pleurisy, which is treated of in the next section.”
“In assessing chest pain we also consider lung problems, including collapsed lung, infections and pleurisy, which is an inflammation around the lung.”
“Back to Eden and found a listing for a root called pleurisy root.”
“Frequently mentioned disease in colonial period; a group of symptoms common to many diseases, such as pleurisy, emphysema, pneumonia, or tuberculosis. escorbuto: scurvy. ex-voto: small votive paintings produced to tell the story of a threatening event from which the subject has been delivered miraculously through the intervention of a divine figure, to whom thanks are reverently offered. fiebre amarilla: yellow fever.”
Pestilence and Headcolds: Encountering Illness in Colonial Mexico
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pleurisy’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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wallace
Remington, Windsor, prorector, wen, aver, mottle, seltzer, tepee, lapidary, effete, sotto, presbyopia and 355 more...
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Afflictions of the Realm
archaic diseases
dropsy, quinsy, tisick, measles, croup, gout, canker, teething, overlaying, mold-shot head, thrush, whooping-cough and 56 more...
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A Posy of pleur Terms
A list of words that begin with or contain the string pleur.
Some of the medical terms and conditions listed here aren't all that pretty.
pleurocollesis, pleurocutaneous, pleurapophyseal, pleurocentral, pleurocentrum, pleurarthron, pleurocele, pleurocentesis, pleurapostema, pleura, pleural, pleuralgia and 63 more...
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hildjj's Words
bookmarklet, demisemiquaver, zeitgeist, hermeneutics, oligarch, quisling, absinthe, mellifluent, verisimilitude, implacable, necrotic, nacreous and 243 more...
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Infinite Jest
Words taken from Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.
prorector, monograph, post-fourier, snuffle, rototremble, creatus, enfilade, subanimalistic, balletic, espadrilles, leonine, cirri and 1153 more...
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Infinite Jest
Words to remember from DFW's "Infinite Jest"
wen, matriculation, circumflex, lapidary, effete, sotto, hypertrophy, presbyopic, ideogram, pinion, parquet, nelson and 152 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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✖ LOCUTIONS
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lambda, coital, HUGO, fuggedaboutit, altrap, Hieroglyphics, Synergy, incarceration, Ethos, Devadasi, distraught, Patrician and 254 more...
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My Modern Job in the Past
Words I come across at work.
Now stripped of most military terms, which have found a new home on the list Historical Military Terms of Interest. See also (and add to!) hilarious misspe...chaise-marine, delft, delftware, quince, tympan, cresset, navvy, venn diagram, poop deck, apothecary, heliotrope, millinery and 294 more...
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Marginilia
intertextuality, queer, serendipity, eerie, semiotics, schadenfreude, calliope, logophile, marginalia, reductio ad absurdum, dabble, minutia and 141 more...
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spamdad's Words
lambic, weizenbock, bock, zymurgy, vade mecum, quotidian, sesquipedalian, eremite, sphragis, privation, aegis, sui generis and 275 more...
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New words, not to be confused with th...
maladroit, aphasia, delphinium, bromide, greenhorn, just deserts, loth, supplanted, steeplechase, steeple, annex, vestments and 236 more...
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Infinite Jest
By David Foster Wallace
wen, mottle, circumflex, lapidary, effete, timbre, presbyopic, caustic, plumb, martial, limbo, enfilade and 16 more...
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DFW
wen, mottle, Kekulé, lapidary, effete, Gabor, espadrille, leonine, martinet, pleurisy, ad valorem, penitent and 5 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for pleurisy.

chained_bear Bear with me, it's a long text.
A Receipt for the PLEURISY.
When a Patient is first taken with a Pain in his Breast, or Side, with a smart Fever and Cough, I first give a Dose of Tartar Emetick, from one to six Grains, according to the Age of the Sick. Work it well off with warm Water. After it hath done working, let him sup Mutton or Chicken Broth. The next Day, if his Pulse continues quick and strong, I have him bled plentifully, and immediately after given him as much of the Pluerisy Root, pounded very fine, and then searched through a fine Search, as will lie upon a tolerable unreadable Case Knife, in a Cup of warm Water, and repeat the Dose every two Hours, until the Patient is perfectly recovered, which happens frequently after three Days, and never fails freeing him from Pain after six; but if he hath been ill some Days, and is very weak, it will be discreet to continue to give him one Dose every Night when he goes to Bed, until he regains his Strength, by the above Remedy. I have cured Hundreds, and never failed in a single Instance. In short, I am so well convinced of the Efficacy of this Method of treating a Pleursy that I would, for Half a per Cent. ensure the Life of any Person in that Disorder, to any Amount, if I could be sure of his beaing treated in that Manner any Time before he was actually speechless. If the Patient is very far gone, the Dose of Tartar Emetick must be increased; as too small a Dose, in such a State, will only disturb the Matter it cannot carry off. I have sometimes cured when the Patient has been so far gone that I have been obliged to have him carried upon a Bier by two Men, and a third to hold him whilst they were thus giving him Exercise to work his Vomit. In this Situation, the Case is so desperate that he must be bled as soon as his Vomit is done working, and then the Pleurisy Root given immediately, but it is always safest not to bleed until the Day after the Vomit, because if the Pulse is then strong you may be sure it is then a Pleurisy, and not a nervous Fever. There are three Sorts of the Pleurisy Root, commonly known by the Name of the Butterfly Weed; the one bears a white, the second an Orange coloured, and the third a dusky red coloured Blossom. The Orange Colour is what I have always used; it grows in almost every Enclosure, and is in full Bloom about Harvest, when it is to be got. It bears its Flowers in a large Bunch at Top, and may be easily known by the immense Numbers of Butterflies which are constantly on the Flowers.
THOMSON MASON.
—Virginia Gazette (Purdie & Dixon), Sept. 23, 1773 Jan 28, 2009