Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A disease such as chickenpox or smallpox, characterized by purulent skin eruptions that may leave pockmarks.
- noun Syphilis.
- noun Misfortune or calamity.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To communicate the pox or venereal disease to.
- noun A disease characterized by eruptive pocks or pustules upon the body.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Med.) Strictly, a disease by pustules or eruptions of any kind, but chiefly or wholly restricted to three or four diseases, -- the smallpox, the chicken pox, and the vaccine and the venereal diseases.
- transitive verb To infect with the pox, or syphilis.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun pathology A
disease characterized bypurulent skin eruptions that may leavepockmarks . - noun
Syphilis . - verb transitive, dated To
infect with the pox, orsyphilis .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a common venereal disease caused by the treponema pallidum spirochete; symptoms change through progressive stages; can be congenital (transmitted through the placenta)
- noun a contagious disease characterized by purulent skin eruptions that may leave pock marks
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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Bozo The Neoclown says: one again pox is wrong. bill clinton has government run health care insurance thanks to his stint as president. much like the geriatrics who watch pox all day, also covered by government run medicare.
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Bozo The Neoclown says: so, lemmie get this straight. maybe one percent of the population of this country tunes in pox news and cancervatards crow this is a stunning success?
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Now as to the first Inoculation for the small pox is almost always a great mitigator of the evils of that disease.
Letter 111 2009
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Nothing discredits an administration like attacking a news organization. pox is not a news organization.
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I think the incubation time for chicken pox is under a week though, right?
A Perpoxing Question ewe are here 2008
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Chicken pox is usually fairly harmless, but it can, under certain circumstances, be extremely dangerous.
A Perpoxing Question ewe are here 2008
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In China small-pox is believed to date from B.C. 1200; but the chronology of the Middle Kingdom still awaits the sceptic.
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Ron says: vaccinating for chicken pox is stupid, Albert.
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I still think that pathetic picture of her with her pox is about the most heart-wrenching picture I’ve seen.
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The small-pox is a very grievous and painful disease, and would be much more terrible than it is but that we know the extremity of it ordinarily lasts but a few days; how grievous then was the disease of Job, who was smitten all over with sore boils or grievous ulcers, which made him sick at heart, put him to exquisite torture, and so spread themselves over him that he could lie down no way for any ease.
Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume III (Job to Song of Solomon) 1721
christiane123 commented on the word pox
William Turner (1775 -1851) wrote a piece for recorder called "A pox on repining" - Can anyone enlighten me as to what this means??
November 3, 2010
john commented on the word pox
Well, to repine is to be sad, or to yearn. And the phrase "a pox on" is basically used to curse something. So I'll guess that a modern English translation might be "to hell with sadness and yearning."
Though if it's a jaunty little dance number, I'm probably wrong.
November 3, 2010
MaryW commented on the word pox
Richard Preston, The Demon in the Freezer: A True Story (New York: Random House, 2002), pp. 64-66
February 16, 2016