pox

• POS: Noun

CIDE DICTIONARY

pox, n. [For pocks, OE. pokkes. See Pock. It is plural in form but is used as a singular.].

 Strictly, a disease by pustules or eruptions of any kind, but chiefly or wholly restricted to three or four diseases, -- the smallpox, the chicken pox, and the vaccine and the venereal diseases.  [1913 Webster]
" Pox, when used without an epithet, as in imprecations, formerly signified smallpox; but it now signifies syphilis."  [1913 Webster]

pox, v. t. 

 To infect with the pox, or syphilis.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

pox, n.
1 any virus disease producing a rash of pimples that become pus-filled and leave pock-marks on healing.
2 colloq. = SYPHILIS.
3 a plant disease that causes pocklike spots.

Idiom

a pox on archaic an exclamation of anger or impatience with (a person).

Etymology

alt. spelling of pocks pl. of POCK

THESAURUS

pox

French disease, Spanish pox, VD, acquired syphilis, balanitis gangrenosa, cerebral tabes, chancre, chancroid, clap, claps, climatic bubo, congenital syphilis, constitutional syphilis, dose, dose of clap, fifth venereal disease, general paresis, gonorrhea, granuloma inguinale, granuloma venereum, great pox, hard chancre, latent syphilis, locomotor ataxia, morbus Gallicus, paralytic dementia, paresis, pudendal ulcer, simple chancre, social disease, soft chancre, syph, syphilis, syphilitic meningoencephalitis, tabes, tabes dorsales, tertiary syphilis, tropical bubo, venereal disease

ROGET THESAURUS

pox

Disease

N disease, illness, sickness, ailing, all the ills that flesh is heir to, morbidity, morbosity, infirmity, ailment, indisposition, complaint, disorder, malady, distemper, distemperature, visitation, attack, seizure, stroke, fit, delicacy, loss of health, invalidation, cachexy, cachexia, atrophy, marasmus, indigestion, dyspepsia, decay, decline, consumption, palsy, paralysis, prostration, taint, pollution, infection, sepsis, septicity, infestation, epidemic, pandemic, endemic, epizootic, murrain, plague, pestilence, pox, sore, ulcer, abscess, fester, boil, pimple, wen, carbuncle, gathering, imposthume, peccant humor, issue, rot, canker, cold sore, fever sore, cancer, carcinoma, leukemia, neoplastic disease, malignancy, tumor, caries, mortification, corruption, gangrene, sphacelus, sphacelation, leprosy, eruption, rash, breaking out, fever, temperature, calenture, inflammation, ague, angina pectoris, appendicitis, Asiatic cholera, spasmodic cholera, biliary calculus, kidney stone, black death, bubonic plague, pneumonic plague, blennorrhagia, blennorrhoea, blood poisoning, bloodstroke, bloody flux, brash, breakbone fever, dengue fever, malarial fever, Q-fever, heart attack, cardiac arrest, cardiomyopathy, hardening of the arteries, arteriosclerosis, atherosclerosis, bronchocele, canker rash, cardialgia, carditis, endocarditis, cholera, asphyxia, chlorosis, chorea, cynanche, dartre, enanthem, enanthema, erysipelas, exanthem, exanthema, gallstone, goiter, gonorrhea, green sickness, grip, grippe, influenza, flu, hay fever, heartburn, heaves, rupture, hernia, hemorrhoids, piles, herpes, itch, king's evil, lockjaw, measles, mumps, polio, necrosis, pertussis, phthisis, pneumonia, psora, pyaemia, pyrosis, quinsy, rachitis, ringworm, rubeola, St. Vitus's dance, scabies, scarlatina, scarlet fever, scrofula, seasickness, struma, syntexis, tetanus, tetter, tonsillitis, tonsilitis, tracheocele, trachoma, trismus, varicella, varicosis, variola, water qualm, whooping cough, yellow fever, yellow jack, fatal disease, dangerous illness, galloping consumption, churchyard cough, general breaking up, break up of the system, idiocy insanity, martyr to disease, cripple, the halt the lame and the blind, valetudinary, valetudinarian, invalid, patient, case, sickroom, sick- chamber, pathology, etiology, nosology, anthrax, bighead, blackleg, blackquarter, cattle plague, glanders, mange, scrapie, milk sickness, heartworm, feline leukemia, roundworms, quarter-evil, quarter-ill, rinderpest, virus, bacterium, bacteria, DNA virus, RNA virus, rhinovirus, rhabdovirus, picornavirus, herpesvirus, cytomegalovirus, CMV, human immunodefficiency virus, HIV, diseased, ailing, ill, ill of, taken ill, seized with, indisposed, unwell, sick, squeamish, poorly, seedy, affected with illness, afflicted with illness, laid up, confined, bedridden, invalided, in hospital, on the sick list, out of health, out of sorts, under the weather, valetudinary, unsound, unhealthy, sickly, morbid, morbose, healthless, infirm, chlorotic, unbraced, drooping, flagging, lame, crippled, halting, morbid, tainted, vitiated, peccant, contaminated, poisoned, tabid, mangy, leprous, cankered, rotten, rotten to the core, rotten at the core, withered, palsied, paralytic, dyspeptic, luetic, pneumonic, pulmonic, phthisic, rachitic, syntectic, syntectical, tabetic, varicose, touched in the wind, broken-winded, spavined, gasping, hors de combat, weakly, weakened, decrepit, decayed, incurable, in declining health, cranky, in a bad way, in danger, prostrate, moribund, morbific epidemic, endemic, zymotic.