malaria

UK/məˈlɛəɹi.ə/US/məˈlɛəɹi.ə/

nounB2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #6,544 of 15,258leans written

Malaria is a fever carried by mosquitoes. Contract malaria, malaria tablets, a malaria zone.

It kills hundreds of thousands of people a year, most of them children in Africa, and it is caused by a parasite rather than a virus or a bacterium. The name means bad air, from the old belief that the marsh air caused it — the mosquitoes were the real link.

Definitions of malaria

1nounmalariaA fever carried by mosquitoes.B2+
“Travellers to the region are advised to take tablets to protect against malaria.”

malaria is a disease.

Where it comes from

Italian mala aria means bad air, from the belief that the disease came from the vapours of marshes.

Italian
malaria
English, today
malaria

Built from

mal- · Italian — bad
aria · Italian — air

Borrowed from Italian malaria, formed from mal- (“bad”) and aria (“air”). Introduced into English by the Scottish geologist John MacCulloch (1773–1835). Displaced native unlyft.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

malaria in the wild

DDT was used in the second half of World War II to limit the spread of the insect-borne diseases malaria and typhus among civilians and troops.
DDT
DDT is one of many tools to fight malaria, which remains the primary public health challenge in many countries.
DDT
The symptoms of human malaria typically include fever, fatigue, vomiting, and headaches.
Malaria
P. ovale and P. malariae generally cause a milder form of malaria.
Malaria
In 2022, some 249 million cases of malaria worldwide resulted in an estimated 608,000 deaths, with 80 percent being 5 years old or younger.
Plasmodium falciparum

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the aria family

malaria aria

malaria — used about once every 2,009 pages · #6,544 · point at the bar for the others

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