ˈchicken-ˈpox
[Generally supposed to have been named from the mildness of the disease. (Fagge Princ. & Pract. Med. I. 234, conjectures an allusion to chick-pease.)]
The common name for Varicella, a mild eruptive disease, bearing some resemblance to small-pox, and chiefly attacking children.
| 1727–38 Chambers Cycl. s.v. Pox, Chicken Pox, a cutaneous disease, frequent in children, wherein the skin is covered with pustules like those of the small pox. 1800 Med. Jrnl. III. 440 Is there not the strongest probability that the swine and the chicken pox derived their origin, at some distant period, from the animals whose names they take? 1809 M. Edgeworth Manœuvring i. (1831) 2, I have just heard that there is a shocking chicken-pox in the village. |
b. chicken-pock: the pustule of this disease.
| 1780 Hunter Small Pox in Phil. Trans. LXX. 134 Sometimes..there is a pitt in consequence of a chicken pock. |