pleurisy
(ˈplʊərɪsɪ)
Forms: 5 pluresy, (pleresye), 6 pluresye, -sie, pleuritie, plewrisie, -osy, plurice, 6–7 plurisie, pleuresie, 6–8 -isie, 7 -esy, plurasie, 7–8 -isy; 6– pleurisy. Also β. 6 in L. forms pl(e)uresis, plurisis.
[a. OF. pleurisie (13th c.), -esie (mod.F. pleurésie), f. late L. pleurisis (Prudent. c 400), mod.L. pleuresis, substituted for pleurītis, a. Gr. πλευρῖτις pleurisy: see pleuritis. Sense 2, and the forms in plu-, are partly due to a supposed derivation from L. plūs, plūr- more (cf. med.L. plūritās multitude), as if pleurisy were due to an excess of humours.]
1. Path. Inflammation of the pleura, with or without effusion of fluid (serum, pus, blood, etc.) into the pleural cavity; a disease characterized by pain in the chest or side, with fever, loss of appetite, etc.; usually caused by chill, or occurring as a complication of other diseases (scarlatina, rheumatic fever, phthisis, etc.). Formerly often with a and pl.
dry pleurisy, (formerly) pleurisy without expectoration; (now) pleurisy without effusion. So humid pleurisy or moist pleurisy.
| 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. v. xxxi. (Bodl. MS.), Sommetyme aposteme is ibrad þerein as it fareþ in pleresye and is ybrad and comeþ of aposteme þat is þe tendrenes of þe ribbes wiþin. Ibid. vii. xi. (1495) 231 Pluresy is a postume on the rybbes wythin. 1534 More Comf. agst. Trib. iii. Wks. 1256/2 And they y{supt} lye in a plewrosy, thinke that euery time they cough, they fele a sharpe sweorde swap them to the heart. 1547 Boorde Brev. Health cclxxxv. 94 A plurice the which is an impostume in the cenerite of the bones. 1562 W. Bullein Bulwark, Bk. Simples 52 The seede drunke, is good against the pleuritie. 1579–80 North Plutarch (1676) 370 The disease whereof he died, which was a Pleurisie. 1676 Worlidge Cyder (1691) 194 Apples..are good against melancholy and the pleuresie. 1709 Lond. Gaz. No. 4513/1 Many have died during the Severity of this Winter of Plurisies. 1862 H. W. Fuller Dis. Lungs 171 Pleurisy..is one of the commonest diseases. |
| β 1527 Andrew Brunswyke's Distyll. Waters D ij b, Good for the sekenes named pleuresis. a 1548 Hall Chron., Hen. V 82 His chamberlain affirmeth that he [Hen. V] died of a Plurisis. 1568 Grafton Chron. II. 938 He sickened of a disease, called Pluresis. |
2. fig. Now
rare or
Obs.; formerly almost always in sense ‘superabundance, excess’ (due to a mistaken etymology: see above).
| a 1550 Vox Populi 655 in Hazl. E.P.P. III. 290 Suppresse this shamfull vsurye, Comonlye called husbondrye: For yf there be no remeadye,..Yt wyll breade to a pluresye. 1597 Howson Serm. 44 For feare of a Pleurisie by impropriations, customes and compositions. 1602 Shakes. Ham. iv. vii. 118 For goodness, growing to a plurisy, Dies in his own too much. 1642 Fuller Holy & Prof. St. ii. xiii. 101 Long since had this land been sick of a plurisie of people, if not let blood in their Western Plantations. |
3. attrib. pleurisy-root, name for
Asclepias tuberosa, also called Butterfly-weed, the root of which is a popular remedy for pleurisy.
| 1785 T. Jefferson Notes on State of Virginia 63 Pleurisy root, Asclepias decumbens. 1831 J. Davies Man. Mat. Med. 238 Pleurisy-root. Fluxroot, &c... A perennial plant, growing all over the United States of America, in gravelly and hilly grounds. 1932 J. B. Harvey Wild Flowers Amer. 55 Butterfly Weed or Pleurisy Root..bears brilliant orange flowers, arranged in flat, terminal clusters. |