malaria
(məˈlɛərɪə)
[a. It. mal'aria for mala aria, lit. ‘bad air’.]
a. The unwholesome condition of the atmosphere which results from the exhalations of marshy districts. Hence used as the name of a class of intermittent and remittent fevers formerly supposed to proceed from this cause, but now known to be caused by the bite of a mosquito of the genus Anopheles, by which the germs of the disease are conveyed.
| 1740 H. Walpole Corr. (1820) I. 68 A horrid thing called the mal'aria, that comes to Rome every summer and kills one. 1801 C. Smith Lett. Solit. Wand. II. 56 He had prolonged our stay at the season of the mal-aria. 1813 J. Forsyth Rem. Excurs. Italy 266 This mal'aria is an evil more active than the Romans, and continues to increase. 1843 Prescott Mexico iii. i. (1864) 131 The same burning sun..calls forth the pestilent malaria, with its train of bilious disorders. 1866 A. Flint Princ. Med. (1880) 110 Periodical fever, commonly known as malaria. 1875 Merivale Gen. Hist. Rome lxxviii. (1877) 656 The malaria of the Campagna..induced the citizens..to reside permanently within their walls. |
b. transf. and
fig.| 1829 Southey Sir T. More II. 94 Practical irreligion is thus produced even in those who escape the malaria of infidelity. 1855 Thackeray Newcomes II. 19 She was a malaria to him, poisoning his atmosphere. 1862 T. C. Grattan Beaten Paths II. 350 A sort of moral malaria pervading society and carrying off many victims. |
c. attrib. and
Comb., as
malaria season, etc.;
malaria bearing,
malaria-carrying,
malaria infected adjs.;
malaria fever, an intermittent or remittent fever prevalent in marshy or swampy districts,
esp. in tropical countries;
malaria germ, a protozoal organism capable of becoming parasitic and causing the disease known as malaria; so
malaria parasite.
| 1899 Allbutt's Syst. Med. VIII. 947 The *malaria-bearing mosquito. |
| 1916 Brit. Mus. Econ. Ser. IV. 8 This group [of mosquitoes]..includes also several of the *malaria-carrying Anopheles. 1946 Nature 10 Aug. 202/2 The experimental infection of laboratory-hatched larvæ of the malaria-carrying Anopheles gambiæ Giles with a fungus of the genus Cœlomyces Keilin. |
| 1818 Shelley Ess. & Lett. (1852) II. 106 A *malaria fever, caught in the Pontine Marshes. 1832 Blackw. Mag. Oct. 525/2 Life [in Padua] creeps away..in having the Malaria fever in summer, and the pleurisy in winter [etc.]. |
| 1898 P. Manson Trop. Dis. v. 97 The mosquito,..the alternative host of the *malaria germ. |
| 1899 Allbutt's Syst. Med. VIII. 947 Mosquitoes reared from the eggs of *malaria-infected insects. |
| 1898 P. Manson Trop. Dis. i. 1 The *malaria parasite. This organism is by far the most important disease agency in tropical pathology. |
| 1821 Byron Let. 1 Oct. in Moore Lett. & Jrnls. (1830) II. 542, I staid out too late for this *malaria season. |