white plague
1
9.9
- noun
- /waɪt pleɪg/
- Archaic
:
tuberculosis
- In literature, the white plague symbolizes the fear and despair associated with the high mortality rates of tuberculosis.
Examples
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The term white plague is often used to describe the widespread suffering caused by tuberculosis before effective treatments were available.
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During the late 19th century, tuberculosis was referred to as the white plague due to its devastating impact on society.
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The "white plague" left America literally breathless.
Academic text (2014) -
This ghostly appearance earned TB the title of the White plague in Victorian era England.
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Known historically as the "white plague" or "consumption," prechemotherapeutic tuberculosis was incurable and was situated in a complex social, economic, and political matrix not unlike HIV-AIDS today.
Academic text (2014)
Synonyms
50
3.7
A serious disease that spreads between people and usually affects the lungs, causing fever and coughing
47
3.2
A serious disease that usually affects the lungs but can also affect other body parts
12
9.9
A lung disease that slowly makes the body thin and weak
4
7.3
A disease that makes a person lose weight and become weak, often affecting the lungs
1
4.9
A serious lung disease that causes a long cough and makes you lose weight
A lung disease that slowly makes the body thin and weak
Surface Forms
Morphology
Knowing 'plague' signals an infectious disease and 'white' suggests pallor or wasting, so a learner could infer this refers to a type of disease with an association to paleness. However, the specific, historical reference to pulmonary tuberculosis is lexicalized and not directly predictable from the parts alone, so the relation is partial rather than fully transparent.
Etymology
White plague was an old name for tuberculosis, a 'lung disease', because the sickness made people very pale and thin; the white part shows their pale look and the plague part shows how it spread, so the phrase came to mean that illness.