Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Smallpox; a specific contagious disease characterized by an eruption of papules, becoming vesicular and then pustular, and attended by high fever, racking pains in the head and spine, and severe constitutional disturbance.
  • noun [capitalized] [NL. (Swainson, 1839).] A genus of fishes
  • noun The pustular apothecium occurring on certain lichens.

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

  • noun (Med.) The smallpox.

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

  • noun pathology smallpox

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

  • noun a highly contagious viral disease characterized by fever and weakness and skin eruption with pustules that form scabs that slough off leaving scars

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[New Latin, from Medieval Latin, pustule, from Latin varius, speckled.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Medieval Latin or Medical Latin variola, from Latin varius.

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Examples

  • The term variola is from the Latin varus, a pimple.

    Popular Science Monthly Oct, Nov, Dec, 1915 — Volume 86 Anonymous

  • The term variola is from the Latin varus, a pimple.

    The Scientific Monthly, October-December 1915 Scientific Monthly 1915

  • Smallpox, caused by a virus called variola, was declared eliminated in 1980 after a global vaccination campaign.

    Cancer Pill may fight Small Pox | Impact Lab 2005

  • Smallpox virus (scientific name variola major) would be a "good" biological warfare agent because it is unusually robust, can be disseminated through the air as an inhalable aerosol to infect people over a large area, and -- unlike anthrax -- is contagious from one person to another.

    Scared Of Smallpox 2007

  • The Latin name variola, like the English pox, was applied indiscriminately to syphilis, small-pox, chicken-pox, etc.

    The Age of the Reformation Preserved Smith 1910

  • That's because two large government laboratories, one in the U.S. and one in Russia, insist on maintaining stocks of the smallpox virus called variola.

    Forbes.com: News Forbes Blogs 2011

  • Others, however, warn that labeling possession of the virus a crime against humanity will in no way deter terrorists, and that without the live smallpox virus, called variola, we won't be able to prepare for the worst.

    Breaking News: CBS News 2011

  • Luckilly, I was able to get a hold of some variola before the bad men in government started to make it extinct.

    Mosquitoes and Eggs 2008

  • European Pressphoto Agency Professor Frank Fenner in 2006 Mr. Fenner, an Australian virologist who died Monday at age 95, led the commission that verified that the World Health Organization ' s decadelong assault on the variola virus had been a success.

    Virologist Helped Eradicate Smallpox Stephen Miller 2010

  • It also led Mr. Fenner to study the related variola virus that causes smallpox.

    Virologist Helped Eradicate Smallpox Stephen Miller 2010

Comments

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  • smallpox

    November 7, 2007