▪ I. catarrh, n.
(kəˈtɑː(r))
Forms: 6 cattar, cattarue, catarh, catterhe, Sc. caterr, catter, 6–7 catar, catarre, catarrhe, 7 catarr, cathar, catharre, cather, 7– catarrh.
[a. F. catarrhe, in 15th c. caterre, 16th c. catarre (= Pr. catar, Sp., It. catarro), ad. L. catarrh-us, ad. Gr. κατάρρους running down, rheum, f. καταρρεῖν to flow down.]
† 1. The profuse discharge from nose and eyes which generally accompanies a cold, and which was formerly supposed to run down from the brain; a ‘running at the nose’. Obs.
| [1398 Trevisa Barth. De. P.R. vii. iv. (1495) 224 Dissoluynge and shedynge thumours of the heed highte Catarrus.] 1533 Elyot Cast. Helth (1541) 23 b, Egges be good ageinst Catars, or stilling out of the hed into the stomake. Ibid. 69 b, Catarres or reumes. 1536 Bellenden Cron. 46 a (Jam.) In the nixt winter Julius Frontynus fell in gret infirmite be imoderat flux of catter. 1586 T. B. La Primaud. Fr. Acad. ii. (1594) 364 Sodainely choked by catarrhes, which like to floods of waters, runne downewards. 1607 Topsell Four-f. Beasts 272 The catar or rhume, which, in a horse, is called the glaunders. 1656 in Blount Glossogr. 1794–6 E. Darwin Zoon. (1801) I. 425 When the secretion of these capillary glands is increased, it is termed simple catarrh. |
† 2. Formerly also applied to: Cerebral effusion or hæmorrhage; apoplexy. Obs.
| 1552 Lyndesay Monarche 5117 Sum ar dissoluit suddantlye Be Cattarue or be Poplesye. 1579 Fenton Guicciard, iii. (1599) 142 King Charles dyed..of a catterhe which the Phisitians call apoplexie. 1708 Kersey, Catarrh of the Spinal Marrow, a Falling-out of the Marrow of the Back⁓bone. 1721–1800 in Bailey. |
3. Inflammation of a mucous membrane; usually restricted to that of the nose, throat, and bronchial tubes, causing increased flow of mucus, and often attended with sneezing, cough, and fever; constituting a common ‘cold’.
Often with qualifying word, as alcoholic catarrh, bronchial catarrh, chronic catarrh, gastric catarrh, uterine catarrh; epidemic catarrh, influenza; summer catarrh, hay-asthma.
| 1588 R. Parke tr. Mendoza's Hist. China 132 A generall sicknesse..called the Cattarre or murre. 1675 Gascoigne in Rigaud Corr. Sc. Men (1841) I. 221 The great epidemical catarrh, which hath ranged through so many countries. 1771 Smollett Humph. Cl. (1815) 107 Rheumatisms, catarrhs, and consumptions, are caught in these nocturnal pastimes. 1782 E. Gray in Med. Commun. I. 47 At Venice..the common name of the disease, Russian catarrh [influenza]. 1797 M. Baillie Morb. Anat. (1807) 117 The Symptoms which attend catarrh are too generally known to require being mentioned. 1818 Moore Fudge Fam. Paris vi. 171 Your cold, of course, is a catarrh. 1831 Youatt Horse xii. (1847) 258 Various names..influenza, distemper, catarrhal fever, and epidemic catarrh. 1868 Dickens Lett. (1880) II. 338 So oppressed am I with this American catarrh, as they call it. |
▪ II. catarrh, v. nonce-wd.
[f. prec.]
To remove or take by catarrh.
| 1822 Lamb in Life & Lett. xii. (1837) 111 As many clerks have been coughed and catarrhed out of it [the War-Office] into their freer graves. |