typhoid (adj.)
1800, literally "resembling typhus," from typhus + -oid. The noun is from 1861, a shortened form of typhoid fever (1845), so called because it originally was thought to be a variety of typhus. Typhoid Mary (1909) was Mary Mallon (d.1938), a typhoid carrier who worked as a cook and became notorious after it was learned she unwittingly had infected hundreds in U.S.
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acute infectious fever, usually accompanied by prostration, delirium, and small reddish spots, 1785, from medical Latin, from Greek typhos "stupor caused by fever," literally "smoke," from typhein "to smoke," related to typhos "blind," typhon "whirlwind," from PIE *dheubh-, perhaps an extended form of PIE root *dheu- (1) "dust, vapor, smoke."
The Greek term [typhos] (smoke, mist, fog) was employed by Hippocrates to define a confused state of the intellect, with a tendency to stupor (stupor attonitus); and in this sense it is aptly applied to typhus fever with its slow cerebration and drowsy stupor. Boissier de Sauvages first (in 1760) called this fever "typhus," and the name was adopted by Cullen of Edinburgh in 1769. Previous to the time of de Sauvages typhus was known as "Pestilential" or "Putrid Fever," or by some name suggested by the eruption, or expressive of the locality in which it appeared, as "Camp," "Jail," "Hospital," or "Ship Fever" (Murchison). [Thomas Clifford, ed., "A System of Medicine," New York, 1897]
Related: typhous (adj.).
word-forming element meaning "like, like that of, thing like a ______," from Latinized form of Greek -oeidēs (three syllables), from eidos "form," related to idein "to see," eidenai "to know;" literally "to see" (from PIE *weid-es-, from root *weid- "to see"). The -o- is connective or a stem vowel from the previous element. Often implying an incomplete or imperfect resemblance to the thing indicated.
Proto-Indo-European root meaning "dust, vapor, smoke."
It forms all or part of: enthymeme; fewmet; fume; fumigation; funk; perfume; sfumato; typhoid; typhoon; typhus.
It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit dhuma- "smoke, fume;" Greek thymos "spirit, courage, anger," thymiao "fumigate," thymin "incense;" Latin fumus "smoke, steam, fume;" Lithuanian dūmai "smoke" (plural); Old Prussian dumis "smoke;" Old Church Slavonic dymu "smoke;" Middle Irish dumacha "fog;" perhaps Old High German toum "steam, vapor."
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