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Glite Dictionary
cattle plague

cattle plague

8.8
A very contagious disease of cattle that usually kills them with fever and severe diarrhea
  • noun
  • /ˈkætəl pleɪɡ/
  • Archaic
translation icon : peste bovina
  • The outbreak of cattle plague in the region led to strict quarantine measures to prevent its spread.

Examples

  • Rinderpest, also known as cattle plague, can devastate herds by causing severe illness and high mortality rates.

  • Rinderpest, derived from the German for cattle plague, is an infectious viral disease with a recorded history going back to ancient Greece.

    Academic text (2013)

  • The earliest reports of cattle plague go back to the siege of Troy in 1184 BCE.

    Academic text (2013)

  • Veterinarians work hard to monitor and control cattle plague to ensure the health of livestock.

Synonyms

rinderpest
vscattle plague
  • Specialized
1 9.9

A serious contagious disease of cows that causes fever, diarrhea, and mouth sores

is the more general or descriptive term for that same illness

Surface Forms

cattle plague singular
cattle plagues plural

Morphology

cattle + plague

The meaning 'an infectious, often fatal disease affecting cattle' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'cattle' (livestock) with 'plague' (a highly contagious disease). This straightforward noun–noun composition follows regular compositional patterns found cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

Cattle plague comes from the clear image of whole herds getting sick at the same time: farmers watched their cattle fall ill and used the word plague for any fast, deadly outbreak. So cattle plague means 'a deadly disease' that spreads quickly through herds, like the illness once called 'rinderpest'.