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ague

noun
/ˈeɪ.ɡju/

Etymology

From Middle English agu, ague, borrowed from Middle French (fievre) aguë, “acute (fever)” (Modern French fièvre aiguë), from Late Latin (febris) acuta (“acute fever”), from Latin acūtus (“sharp, acute”) + febris (“fever”). Doublet of acute.

  1. derived from acūtus
  2. inherited from agu

Definitions

  1. An acute fever.

  2. An intermittent fever, attended by alternate cold and hot fits.

    • He had to capture some character and get out of that rest room before his ague got so bad that the sergeant had to carry him to and from the booth every day.
    • Ague and lake fever had attacked our new settlement. The men in the shanty were all down with it, and my husband was confined to his bed on each alternate day, unable to raise hand or foot, and raving in the delirium of the fever.

  3. The cold fit or rigor of an intermittent fever.

    • fever and ague
  4. ›+ 3 more definitions

    1. A chill, or state of shaking, as with cold.

      • November 23, 1698, John Dryden, letter to Mrs Stewart I ’scap’d with one cold fit of an ague

    2. Malaria.

      • Where I’m from, people have learned that mosquitoes carry ague.

    3. To strike with an ague, or with a cold fit.

The neighborhood

Derived

ague cake, aguelike, agueproof, ague tree, agueweed, aguey, aguish, buck ague, Covent Garden ague, duck ague, dumb ague, face ague, fever and ague

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for ague. 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