morbus

See also: Morbus

English

Etymology

From Latin morbus.

Noun

morbus (plural morbuses or morbi)

(medicine, formal) A disease.
- 1838, Thomas Hood, “A Rise at the Father of Angling”, in The Comic Annual, page 47:
  I thought he were took with the Morbus one day, I did with his nasty angle!
  For “oh dear,” says he, and burst out in a cry, “oh my gut is all got of a tangle!”
- 1846, William Andrus Alcott, The Young House-keeper: Or, Thoughts on Food and Cookery, page 214:
  Probably no small share of our cholera morbuses, diarrhœas, and dysenteries, have their origin in this source.
- 1979, F. Kraupl Taylor, D. M. K. Taylor, The Concepts of Illness, Disease and Morbus, page 117:
  Unfortunately, most of the morbi accepted in modern medicine are only taxonomic entities whose causal derivation is merely partially known and therefore polygenic.

Related terms

Anagrams

Borums

Latin

Etymology

From Proto-Indo-European *mer- (“to die”), the same root of morī (“to die”), with an extension *-bʰo-, possibly *-bʰh₂o- from *bʰeh₂- (“to appear”), and thus meaning “appearing like death”.

Pronunciation

(Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈmor.bus/, [ˈmɔrbʊs̠]
(modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈmor.bus/, [ˈmɔrbus]

Noun

morbus m (genitive morbī); second declension

(of the body or mind) a disease, illness, malady, sickness, disorder, distemper, ailment
Synonyms: aegritūdō, malum, pestis, valētūdō, labor, incommodum, infirmitas

Antonyms: salūs, valētūdō
- c. 99 BCE – 55 BCE, Lucretius, De rerum natura 5.220:
  Cur anni tempora morbos adportant?
  Why do the seasons of the year bring maladies?
- 8 CE, Ovid, Fasti 4.763–764:
  ‘pelle procul morbōs; valeant hominēsque gregēsque,
  et valeant vigilēs, prōvida turba, canēs.’
  ‘‘Drive diseases far away; may both men and flocks be healthy,
  and healthy too the watching dogs, that foreseeing pack.’’
  (A shepherd’s prayer to Pales.)
(of the mind) a fault, vice, failing
(of the mind) Sorrow, grief, distress
death

Declension

Second-declension noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	morbus	morbī
genitive	morbī	morbōrum
dative	morbō	morbīs
accusative	morbum	morbōs
ablative	morbō	morbīs
vocative	morbe	morbī

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

Catalan: borm, morb, morma
English: morbid
French: morve
Italian: morbo
Old Galician-Portuguese: mormo
- Galician: mormo
- Portuguese: mormo
Piedmontese: mòrb
Romanian: morb
Sicilian: morvu
Old Spanish:
- Spanish: muermo
→ German: Morbus
→ Portuguese: morbo (learned)
→ Spanish: morbo (learned)

References

“morbus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
“morbus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
morbus in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
morbus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
- he fell ill: in morbum incidit
- to be attacked by disease: morbo tentari or corripi
- to be laid on a bed of sickness: morbo afflīgi
- to be seriously ill: gravi morbo affectum esse, conflictari, vexari
- the disease gets worse: morbus ingravescit
- to be carried off by a disease: morbo absūmi (Sall. Iug. 5. 6)
- to recover from a disease: ex morbo convalescere (not reconvalescere)
- to recruit oneself after a severe illness: e gravi morbo recreari or se colligere
- to excuse oneself on the score of health: valetudinem (morbum) excusare (Liv. 6. 22. 7)
- to die a natural death: morbo perire, absūmi, consūmi
- to pretend to be ill: simulare morbum
- to pretend not to be ill: dissimulare morbum
- to plead ill-health as an excuse for absence: excusare morbum, valetudinem