‖ singultus
(sɪŋˈgʌltəs)
[L. Cf. singult.]
1. Path. Hiccups, hiccuping.
Given in the Physical Dict. (1657) and in Blancard, Harris, etc., but without evidence of actual use in English.
| 1754–64 Smellie Midwifery III. 180 A fever intervened..attended with singultus. 1767 Gooch Treat. Wounds I. 395 Sickness, vomiting, singultus, languor, anxiety. 1818–20 E. Thompson Cullen's Nosologia 197 Dry cough, vomiting, singultus. 1880 Flint Princ. Med. 313 Singultus may be produced by pressure on the phrenic or branches of the pneumogastric nerve. |
2. A sob. rare.
| 1824 Byron Juan xv. ii, But, more or less, the whole's a syncope Or a singultus—emblems of emotion. |