Diphtheria is a dangerous infection of the throat. Vaccinated against diphtheria.
It forms a grey membrane that can block the airway, which is what killed so many children. Vaccination has made diphtheria almost unknown where it is kept up and it returns wherever it lapses.
1noundiphtheriaA dangerous infection of the throat.
“Diphtheria killed four children in that street in one winter.”
diphtheria is a disease.
French diphterie was coined in the 1850s from Greek diphthera, a piece of leather, for the membrane the disease forms.
French
diphtérie
English, today
diphtheria
Borrowed from French diphtérie. From French diphtérie (later for a while also spelled diphthérie) in 1857, which was coined in 1855 with the suffix -ie to replace -ite in the previous term diphtérite for the disease because it affects more than one part of the body. The previous term (later for a while also spelled diphthérite) was coined in 1817 by Pierre Bretonneau using Ancient Greek διφθέρα (“prepared hide, leather”) in reference to the tough membrane that forms in the throat. Bretonneau perhaps coined and used the Latin term diphtheritis (with its close imitation of Greek spelling typical of Neolatin) even earlier than the French term diphtérite, which follows the French habit of sometimes spelling t for the Latin transliteration th of Greek θ (but not, for example, in thermomètre).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA