🤒 A skin disease 🦠 To infect 💥 To ruin

to pox

9.5

To give people or animals a disease that makes skin blisters like smallpox

verb
/pɑks/

: contagiarse de viruela

If you touch the infected area, you might actually pox your own skin.

Examples

Children can sometimes pox when they play too close to an infected friend.
The doctor warned us that we could easily pox if we did not take precautions against the virus.
The monkey pox big and they each pox big and they purple.

Synonyms

to infect

vsto pox

466 2.6

Make people or animals sick by spreading germs

is limited to causing infection specifically with smallpox or chickenpox

to variolate

vsto pox

Archaic

9.9

To give someone smallpox on purpose to protect them from it

means becoming covered by diseases like smallpox or chickenpox, not deliberate inoculation

Antonyms

to heal

481 1.2

To become healthy again after an injury, illness, or emotional pain

Compounds

chicken pox

21 2.0

A contagious illness that causes an itchy red rash and blisters

the pox

Archaic

3 9.9

A serious illness that spreads between people and causes skin sores, often meaning smallpox in old texts

white pox

Specialized

1 9.9

A less serious form of smallpox that causes small sores and a mild fever

milk pox

Archaic

9.9

A mild form of smallpox caused by a weaker virus strain

Kaffir pox

Slur

9.9

A mild kind of smallpox that causes less severe symptoms and appears in old reports from southern Africa

pox doctor

Archaic

9.9

A doctor who treated people with smallpox and other contagious diseases during outbreaks

Surface Forms

pox infinitive

poked past

poked past participle

poxing present participle

poxes third person singular

Etymology

The verb pox comes from the noun pox and originally meant to give someone the 'blisters' of the illness, so to pox someone is to infect or cover them with that disease.