Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Acute inflammation of the tonsils and the surrounding tissue, often leading to the formation of an abscess.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Tonsillitis; specifically, a deep suppurative tonsillitis.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Med.) An inflammation of the throat, or parts adjacent, especially of the fauces or tonsils, attended by considerable swelling, painful and impeded deglutition, and accompanied by inflammatory fever. It sometimes creates danger of suffocation; -- called also
squinancy , andsquinzey .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun pathology A painful
pus -filled inflammation orabscess of thetonsils and surrounding tissues, usually a complication oftonsillitis , caused by bacterial infection and often accompanied by fever.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a painful pus filled inflammation of the tonsils and surrounding tissues; usually a complication of tonsillitis
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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For the Church of the Badia of Florence he made a very beautiful S. Jerome; and he began a Deposition from the Cross for the high-altar of the Friars of the Nunziata, but only finished the figures in the upper half of the picture, for, being overcome by a most cruel fever and by that contraction of the throat that is commonly known as quinsy, he died in a few days at the age of forty-five.
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo Giorgio Vasari 1542
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The name Prunella (which belongs more rightly to another herb) has been given to the Sanicle, perhaps, through its having been originally known as Brunella, Brownwort, both because of the brown colour of its spikes, and from its being supposed to cure the disease called in Germany _die braune_, a kind of quinsy; on the doctrine of signatures, because the corolla resembles a throat with swollen glands.
Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure William Thomas Fernie
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Next day, I was in my surgery, listening patiently to an elderly lady from the village, some relation to the soup cook, who was rather garrulously detailing her daughter-in-law's bout with the morbid sore throat that theoretically had something to do with her current complaint of quinsy, though I couldn't at the moment see the connection.
Sick Cycle Carousel 2010
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He'd had the quinsy and swollen glands when he was young, he told me, and it had left him with a weak throat, and a hesitating, whispering fashion of speech.
Sole Music 2010
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There was a child of my own, and he but a year and a-half old, and he got a quinsy and a choking in the throat and I was holding him in my arms beside the fire, and all in a minute he died.
Later Articles and Reviews W.B. Yeats 2000
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He was sick with quinsy, a severe throat infection, and malaria.
Dream State Diane Roberts 2008
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Persons who escape an attack of quinsy, and when the disease is turned upon the lungs, die in seven days; or if they pass these they become affected with empyema.
Aphorisms 2007
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It is a good sign when swelling and redness on the breast seize a person very ill of quinsy, for in this case the disease is diverted outwardly.
Aphorisms 2007
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The woman affected with quinsy, who lodged in the house of Aristion: her complaint began in the tongue; speech inarticulate; tongue red and parched.
Of The Epidemics 2007
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It is a good symptom when swelling on the outside of the neck seizes a person very ill of quinsy, for the disease is turned outwardly.
Aphorisms 2007
fbharjo commented on the word quinsy
dog collar
June 22, 2007
knitandpurl commented on the word quinsy
"When she was ill in December, quite seriously so, with a quinsy, I wrote the following little hymn. I began to compose it one morning, before daybreak, but fell asleep at the end of the first two lines. When I waked again the third and fourth were whispered to my heart in a way which I have often experienced."
--The Winner of Sorrow by Brian Lynch, p 80
July 12, 2009
dailyword commented on the word quinsy
One of the characters in Bedknobs and Broomsticks had this.
July 16, 2012
ruzuzu commented on the word quinsy
"An inflammation of the throat, or parts adjacent, especially of the fauces or tonsils, attended by considerable swelling, painful and impeded deglutition, and accompanied by inflammatory fever. It sometimes creates danger of suffocation; -- called also squinancy, and squinzey."
--GNU Webster's 1913
July 26, 2012