vesicular stomatitis
- noun
- /vəˈsɪkjələr stəˈmætɪs/
- Specialized
:
estomatitis vesicular
- As recently as June of this year, a suspicious livestock disease outbreak in Arizona and New Mexico had federal and private veterinarians scurrying for confirmation that the problem at hand was not the foot-and-mouth virus, but its copycat cousin, vesicular stomatitis.
Examples
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Farmers in the region reported cases of vesicular stomatitis among their cattle, leading to increased veterinary visits.
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Vesicular stomatitis is a viral disease that can cause painful sores in the mouth of infected vesicular stomatitis horses.
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Humans exposed to vesicular stomatitis may experience mild flu-like symptoms, although the disease primarily affects livestock.
Surface Forms
Morphology
Both constituents are transparently compositional: 'vesicular' means relating to vesicles (small blisters) and 'stomatitis' means inflammation of the mouth, so combined the phrase denotes an oral inflammation featuring vesicles. This follows regular medical compound formation and is cross-linguistically predictable, so a B1 learner who knows the two parts can infer the overall meaning.
Etymology
Vesicular stomatitis comes from two parts: vesicular meaning 'small blisters' and stomatitis meaning 'inflamed mouth'. So, the name describes the disease's main sign, blisters in the mouth and on the skin, which is why doctors use it for this illness.
