rubella

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A mild contagious eruptive disease caused by a virus and capable of producing congenital defects in infants born to mothers infected during the first three months of pregnancy. Also called German measles.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A usually insignificant contagious disease, with a rose-colored eruption, slight catarrhal symptoms in the mucous membranes of the head and larger air-passages of the chest, and usually slight pyrexia and cervical lymphadenitis. The incubation period is from one to three weeks; there is no prodromal period, or it is only for a few hours. The rash, which migrates, lasts in one place not more than half a day, but is present on the body somewhere from two to four days. Rubella protects against second attacks, but not against measles or scarlet fever, with one or the other of which it is sometimes confused. Also called rubeola and German measles.

Wiktionary

1. n. pathology A mild disease caused by the Rubella virus infecting the respiratory tract, and characterised by a rash of pink dots, fever and swollen lymph nodes.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Med.) An acute but mild viral infection characterized by a dusky red cutaneous eruption resembling that of measles, but attended by only mild respiratory problems or fever; -- called also German measles. The infective virus is called Rubella virus, or Rubivirus. If contracted by a woman during the first several months of pregnancy, rubella may cause serious abnormalities in the fetus.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a contagious viral disease that is a milder form of measles lasting three or four days; can be damaging to a fetus during the first trimester