Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. See smallpox.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The pustular apothecium occurring on certain lichens.
- n. Smallpox; a specific contagious disease characterized by an eruption of papules, becoming vesicular and then pustular, and attended by high fever, racking pains in the head and spine, and severe constitutional disturbance. The eruption in its vesicular stage is umbilicated, and it is apt to leave a number of roundish depressed scars, the pits or pock-marks. See
smallpox . - n. [capitalized] [NL. (Swainson, 1839).] A genus of fishes
Wiktionary
- n. pathology smallpox
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Med.) The smallpox.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a highly contagious viral disease characterized by fever and weakness and skin eruption with pustules that form scabs that slough off leaving scars
Etymologies
- From Medieval Latin or Medical Latin variola, from Latin varius. (Wiktionary)
- New Latin, from Medieval Latin, pustule, from Latin varius, speckled. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The term variola is from the Latin varus, a pimple.”
“Smallpox, caused by a virus called variola, was declared eliminated in 1980 after a global vaccination campaign.”
“Smallpox virus (scientific name variola major) would be a "good" biological warfare agent because it is unusually robust, can be disseminated through the air as an inhalable aerosol to infect people over a large area, and -- unlike anthrax -- is contagious from one person to another.”
“The Latin name variola, like the English pox, was applied indiscriminately to syphilis, small-pox, chicken-pox, etc.”
“That's because two large government laboratories, one in the U.S. and one in Russia, insist on maintaining stocks of the smallpox virus called variola.”
“Others, however, warn that labeling possession of the virus a crime against humanity will in no way deter terrorists, and that without the live smallpox virus, called variola, we won't be able to prepare for the worst.”
“Luckilly, I was able to get a hold of some variola before the bad men in government started to make it extinct.”
“European Pressphoto Agency Professor Frank Fenner in 2006 Mr. Fenner, an Australian virologist who died Monday at age 95, led the commission that verified that the World Health Organization ' s decadelong assault on the variola virus had been a success.”
The Wall Street Journal: Virologist Helped Eradicate Smallpox
“It also led Mr. Fenner to study the related variola virus that causes smallpox.”
The Wall Street Journal: Virologist Helped Eradicate Smallpox
“Officially, there are only two samples of variola left on earth -- one in Russia, one in the United States -- but few experts doubt that when the Soviet empire dissolved in the early '90s, samples found their way into the hands of potential terrorists.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘variola’.
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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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phrontistery-v
from phrontistery.info
vaccary, vaccimulgence, vaccine, vacillate, vadelect, vade-mecum, vadimony, vadose, vafrous, vagient, vagile, vagility and 396 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 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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anotherfailedattempt's Words
kakistocracy, conflagration, pollyanna, equanimity, punctillious, obstreperous, ribald, belligerent, truculent, verbose, lachrymose, onanism and 278 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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Words that make you go hmmmm...
Interesting words you probably won't hear in your day-to-day.
maxwell, mooncalf, quagga, glaikit, musquash, lingam, haruspex, qindarka, chthonic, ipomoea, azimuthal, valuta and 304 more...
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Archaic Medical Conditions
dropsy, scurvy, ague, thrush, consumption, mania, rickets, scrumpox, variola, strangery, sloes, screws and 21 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for variola.
sionnach smallpox Nov 6, 2007