rabies
Definitions
General English
- noun a serious disease which can cause death and which is passed to humans by infected animals.
Agriculture
- noun a frequently fatal notifiable viral disease transmitted to humans by infected animals
Military
- noun a fatal virus affecting mammals (especially dogs, foxes and wolves but also humans), which is transmitted by the animal’s saliva
Travel
- noun a very serious viral disease transmitted to humans by infected animals that causes convulsions and inability to move
Origin & History of “rabies”
Latin rabiēs meant ‘fury, madness’ (it is the source of English rage). Hence it came to be used for ‘madness in dogs’, and was subsequently adopted as the name of the disease causing this, when it came to be identified. The word was derived from the verb rabere ‘be mad’, as also was rabidus, source of English rabid (17th c.).
