typhoid

UK/ˈtaɪ.fɔɪd/US/ˈtaɪ.fɔɪd/

nounC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,698 of 15,258neutral

Typhoid is a dangerous fever caught from dirty water or food. Typhoid fever, a typhoid outbreak, vaccinated against typhoid.

It is spread by sewage reaching drinking water, which is why it vanished from rich countries with sanitation and is still common where that is lacking. Typhoid Mary was a cook in New York who carried it without symptoms and infected dozens.

Definitions of typhoid

1nountyphoidA dangerous fever caught from dirty water or food.C1
“Before clean water arrived, typhoid killed many people in the crowded city.”

typhoid is a disease.

Where it comes from

From typhus plus -oid, meaning resembling typhus, though the two diseases are unrelated.

From typhus + -oid.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

typhoid in the wild

Typhoid fever, also known as typhoid, is an orally contracted disease caused by Salmonella enterica serotype Typhi bacteria, also called Salmonella Typhi.
Typhoid fever
In 2015, 12.5 million new typhoid cases were reported.
Typhoid fever
Between 1897 and 1907, Mallon worked at the houses of several New York-based families; members of four of the households contracted typhoid.
Mary Mallon
A further typhoid outbreak at the Sloane Maternity Hospital in early 1915 resulted in twenty-five cases and two deaths.
Mary Mallon
Following his death from typhoid at age 15, Stanford became the namesake of Stanford University, which is officially called Leland Stanford Junior University.
Leland Stanford Jr.

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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.

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