Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A febrile condition in which there are alternating periods of chills, fever, and sweating. Used chiefly in reference to the fevers associated with malaria.
- noun A chill or fit of shivering.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun An acute or violent fever.
- noun Intermittent fever; a malarial fever characterized by regularly returning paroxysms, each in well-developed forms, consisting of three stages marked by successive fits, cold or shivering (the chill), hot or burning, and sweating; chills and fever.
- noun Chilliness; a chill not resulting from disease.
- To cause a shivering in; strike with a cold fit.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun obsolete An acute fever.
- noun (Med.) An intermittent fever, attended by alternate cold and hot fits.
- noun The cold fit or rigor of the intermittent fever.
- noun A chill, or state of shaking, as with cold.
- noun an enlargement of the spleen produced by ague.
- noun a solution of the arsenite of potassa used for ague.
- noun a fit of the ague.
- noun a spell or charm against ague.
- noun [Obs.] the sassafras, -- sometimes so called from the use of its root formerly, in cases of ague.
- transitive verb To strike with an ague, or with a cold fit.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun obsolete An acute
fever . - noun pathology An
intermittent fever, attended by alternate cold and hot fits. - noun The cold fit or
rigor of the intermittent fever; as, fever and ague. - noun A chill, or state of
shaking , as with cold. - noun obsolete
Malaria . - verb transitive To
strike with an ague, or with a coldfit .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun successive stages of chills and fever that is a symptom of malaria
- noun a fit of shivering or shaking
- noun a mark (') placed above a vowel to indicate pronunciation
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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An encouraging sign was that his health was none too good; he complained of what he called ague, and I had hopes that he'd be in no shape to start a war that summer.
THE NUMBERS 2010
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An encouraging sign was that his health was none too good; he complained of what he called ague, and I had hopes that he'd be in no shape to start a war that summer.
Flashman and the angel of the lord Fraser, George MacDonald, 1925- 1995
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An encouraging sign was that his health was none too good; he complained of what he called ague, and I had hopes that he'd be in no shape to start a war that summer.
Flashman and the angel of the lord Fraser, George MacDonald, 1925- 1995
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According to the Septuagint, "ague" is "the jaundice," which disorders the eyes and produces great depression of spirits.
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The brother who has been suffering from ague is probably her elder brother John.
Letters from Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple (1652-54) 1888
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What are commonly termed ague cakes, are diseases of the spleen, and sometimes terminates in Inflammation of the Spleen.
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She deplores British developers who would have used technical expertise to drain British wetlands for their own material gain, and thus exterminate certain species; she examines that interesting psychological place where scientific method and religious belief collide (when, for instance, the hated Jesuits discover the quinine that could cure the dreaded "ague" -- later determined to be malaria -- but Protestant prejudice prevented its use).
Fiona Mountain's 'Lady of the Butterflies' about a 17th-century female scientist 2010
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Malaria was originally called ague or marsh fever because it emanated from warm-weather swamps.
A Convenient Untruth Shnayerson, Michael 2007
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The ague, which is usually accompanied by fever, is of a kind very difficult to shake off, gradually weakening the sufferer till he sinks under its influence; the natives themselves are by no means free from its strokes, to which attacks every stranger who remains for many days in the vicinity of the marshes is liable.
A Peep into Toorkisthhan Rollo Gillespie Burslem
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I may mention in explanation of this question of mine that, the year before, I had been confined to bed with a sharp attack of a sort of tertian ague, which is the scourge of most tropical countries.
The White Squall A Story of the Sargasso Sea J. [Illustrator] Schonberg
johnmperry commented on the word ague
pronounced /'eIgju:/
July 24, 2008
vanishedone commented on the word ague
Can this refer to a kind of diacritic, or is WeirdNet acting up again? I can find the ocasional apparently supportive reference, e.g. to 'the umlaut in German or the ague accent in French', but checking other English dictionaries hasn't given me any results.
September 3, 2008
rolig commented on the word ague
I think that in French, the "accent ague" (pronounced with the accent on the second syllable, a'gü) is the same as the acute accent, as in étude.
September 3, 2008
qroqqa commented on the word ague
The modern French spelling is aigu "acute", though English 'ague' is in origin the same word: an acute fever.
September 3, 2008
artoparts commented on the word ague
Achoo! see gesundheit.
February 26, 2009