sleepy sickness
- noun
- /ˈsliːpi ˈsɪknəs/
- Archaic
:
enfermedad del sueño
- In the early 20th century, many people suffered from sleepy sickness, which left them paralyzed and unable to move.
Examples
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Doctors described the symptoms of sleepy sickness as including extreme fatigue and weakness.
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The epidemic of sleepy sickness had devastating effects on entire communities during the 1920s.
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Rose is the granddaughter of Unity Kincaid, one of the victims of the "sleepy sickness" from the previous book, who was raped and bore a child as she slept.
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Synonyms
3
7.2
A serious brain disease that makes people very weak and keeps some eye muscles from working
A brain disease that caused deep sleepiness and severe muscle weakness during an epidemic in the early 1900s
An infection of the brain that makes people unable to move their eyes and feel very weak during 1915–1926 outbreaks
A brain disease that causes deep sleep, weak muscles, and trouble moving the eyes in the early 1900s
Surface Forms
Morphology
sleepy + sickness
The compound is transparently built from 'sleepy' + 'sickness' and a B1 learner who knows those words will naturally interpret it as an illness that causes sleepiness (i.e., a sickness characterized by sleepiness). Although the medical entry refers to a specific encephalitic epidemic and there is a more common variant name ('sleeping sickness'), the basic meaning is compositionally predictable across languages and thus accessible to learners who know the constituents.
Etymology
Sleepy sickness got its name from how the illness acted: people often suddenly fell into a long sleep and became very weak or could not move. That's why the words sleepy and sickness were used to describe a disease that made people 'sleep' and lose strength.