Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An acute contagious disease caused by a hemolytic streptococcus, occurring predominantly among children and characterized by a scarlet skin eruption and high fever.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun pathology A
streptococcal infection, mainly occurring among children, and characterized by a red skin rash, sore throat and fever.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun an acute communicable disease (usually in children) characterized by fever and a red rash
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treeseed commented on the word scarlet fever
Scarlet fever is a disease caused by an exotoxin released by Streptococcus pyogenes Group A and occurs rarely with impetigo or other streptococcal infections. It is characterized by sore throat, fever, a 'strawberry' tongue, and a fine sandpaper rash over the upper body that may spread to cover almost the entire body. This disease was also once known as Scarlatina (from the Italian scarlattina).
_Wikipedia
January 29, 2008