Word of the Day
Ague (AY-gyoo)
· Common clues: A malarial fever; Flu symptom, perhaps; Feverish chill
· Crossword puzzle frequency: 6 times a year
· Frequency in English language: 52282 / 86800
Ague is an archaic term for fever. The translation in Leviticus 26:16 (R.V., "fever") of the Hebrew word kaddah'ath, meaning "kindling", i.e., an inflammatory or burning fever. In Deut. 28:22 the word is rendered "fever."
Montezuma
Marsh
It was also used in Old English as a word for malaria. Ague killed about 1000 men in the digging of the Montezuma Marsh section of the Erie Canal in 1819. It was understood that the fever came from the swamps, but not that mosquitoes were the carriers. "Bad air" was blamed instead. Along the southeastern coast of the United States during its early history ague was a major killer, and many of the wealthier residents of Charleston, Savannah and other coastal cities with large swampy areas would travel to Boston or to the southern Appalachian Mountains to escape.
T. S. Eliot wrote of 'The ague of the skeleton' in Whispers of Immortality.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Ague".
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