white pox
1
9.9
- noun
- Specialized
:
viruela blanca
- During the 18th century, some people contracted white pox and survived with only minor scarring.
Examples
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Historians believe that white pox spread more slowly than the more deadly forms of smallpox.
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The doctor diagnosed the patient with white pox due to the milder symptoms and faster recovery.
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The doctor diagnosed him with white pox.
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Many children in the village suffered from white pox last summer.
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The researchers are studying how white pox spreads among coral populations.
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After analyzing the samples, the scientists confirmed the presence of white pox in several reef areas.
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White pox is a disease that affects coral, causing white lesions on the surface.
Synonyms
A milder form of smallpox caused by a weaker virus
A mild form of smallpox with less severe symptoms
A mild form of smallpox caused by a weaker virus strain
A mild form of smallpox that makes people less sick than usual
A mild form of smallpox caused by a weaker virus
A mild type of smallpox that usually causes less severe sickness and few deaths
A mild form of a serious disease that causes fever and skin blisters, seen historically in the West Indies
Surface Forms
Morphology
Knowing 'white' and 'pox' a B1 learner would correctly infer this refers to a type or variety of pox (the adjective modifies the disease), so the compound is partly compositional. However, the precise clinical sense 'a mild form of smallpox caused by a less virulent strain' is not directly predictable from the color adjective—there is no transparent, cross-linguistic link between 'white' and 'mildness'—so the expression is only partially transparent.
Etymology
The noun white pox may come from old doctors who described the pale spots of a milder smallpox: the word white for pale and pox for the disease. One popular story says people used 'white' to show the illness was less dangerous, so the name came to mean 'a mild form of smallpox'.