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French disease

noun

Etymology

The full explanation of why syphilis was called the French disease as a calque across various languages involves a 1495 outbreak involving French soldiers (more in Wikipedia at History of syphilis); but it is also true that this term is one of several that blame othered ethnicities for distasteful and unseemly things.

Definitions

  1. Syphilis.

    • Although the Inquisition trials dealing with the French disease are few in number, the cases provide competing opinions about the cause of illness, thereby providing some insights into how the categories of natural and supernatural[…]

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for French disease. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA