Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Heat stroke caused by exposure to the sun and characterized by a rise in temperature, convulsions, and coma.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Same as folletage.
  • noun Acute prostration from excessive heat of weather.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Med.) Any affection produced by the action of the sun on some part of the body; especially, a sudden prostration of the physical powers, with symptoms resembling those of apoplexy, occasioned by exposure to excessive heat, and often terminating fatally; coup de soleil.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun pathology Heatstroke caused by an excessive exposure to the sun's rays.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun sudden prostration due to exposure to the sun or excessive heat

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The term sunstroke is applied to affections occasioned not exclusively by exposure to the sun's rays, as the word signifies, but by the action of great heat combined generally with humid atmosphere.

    Special Report on Diseases of the Horse Charles B. Michener 1877

  • Unless action is taken to reduce the core body temperature of the patient to the normal 98. 6º F the current fever at a temperature of 100. 1º F (1. 5º F above) will continue to rise to where the patient reaches 104º F (5. 4º F above normal) resulting in the condition more commonly know as sunstroke or heat stroke.

    Urgent Global Warning - Immediate Medical Attention Required 2009

  • If a young lady has sunstroke, that is a matter of no significance to the universe.

    A Passage To India Forster, E. M. 1924

  • Yes! and there are a great many more that belong to the tropics; as there is such a thing as sunstroke, which is, perhaps, as dangerous as the cramping cold from the icebergs of the north.

    Expositions of Holy Scripture Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John Alexander Maclaren 1868

  • Heat stroke, sometimes called sunstroke, is the most serious heat-related illness.

    News for Opelika-Auburn News 2010

  • As a rule people have no word for expressing a thing which does not come within their own range of experience; for instance, no one would expect that Arabs, or Somalis, or the inhabitants of the Sahara would have any equivalent for either skating or tobogganing, nor do I imagine that the Eskimo have any expression for "sunstroke" or

    The Days Before Yesterday Frederick Spencer Hamilton 1892

  • The cold of winter rarely reaches 10° (Fahrenheit) and sunstroke which is so common and fatal in many of the Northern States during the summer is almost unknown here.

    Report of Vice-Consul R.E. Heide, on the resources, trade and commerce of North Carolina. R. E. Heide 1875

  • I need to have reason to know all of the symptoms of sunstroke, which I had memorized by the time I was twelve.

    How to Flirt with A Naked Werewolf Molly Harper 2011

  • “Music for you makes sense,” Fancy was saying, longing for a heat rash or sunstroke so that she would have a reason not to go to Cherry Glade.

    Slice Of Cherry Dia Reeves 2011

  • It was just sunstroke and animal bones and the wind.

    Slice Of Cherry Dia Reeves 2011

Comments

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  • I like the 'sudden prostration' bit.

    November 11, 2008