measles
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GC: npl

S: WHO – http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs286/en/ (last access: 6 September 2015); DORLAND p. 2063.

N: 1. Infectious disease, early 14c., plural of Middle English masel, perhaps from Middle Dutch masel “blemish” (in plural “measles”) or Middle Low German masele, from Proto-Germanic *mas- “spot, blemish” (cognates: Old High German masla “blood-blister,” German Masern “measles”).
There might have been an Old English cognate, but if so it has not been recorded. Form probably influenced by Middle English mesel “leprous” (late 13c.).
2. measles, also called rubeola, contagious viral disease marked by fever, cough, conjunctivitis, and a characteristic rash. Measles is commonest in children but may appear in older persons who have escaped it earlier in life. Infants are immune up to four or five months of age if the mother has had the disease. Immunity to measles following an attack is usually lifelong.
3. Measles is so highly communicable that the slightest contact with an active case may infect a susceptible person. After an incubation period of about 10 days, the patient develops fever, redness and watering of the eyes, profuse nasal discharge, and congestion of the mucous membranes of the nose and throat—symptoms often mistaken for those of a severe cold.
4. In the field of Animal diseases: Infestation of beef by the cystic stage of a tapeworm. Cysticercosis Bovis. Also swine cysticercosis cellulosis. In this case, measles = cisticercos in Spanish and ladrerie in French.
5. Cultural Interrelation: In 1962, Olivia ‘Twenty’ Dahl, eldest daughter of Roald Dahl and Patricia Neal, dies. Roald Dahl on Olivia, writing in 1986
“MEASLES: A dangerous illness.

S: 1. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=measles&searchmode=none (last access: 4 September 2014). 2 & 3. EncBrit – http://global.britannica.com/science/measles (last access: 4 September 2014). 4. TERMIUM PLUS (last access: 4 September 2014); GDT (last access: 4 September 2014); NAVARRO p. 613; FCB. 5. http://www.roalddahl.com/roald-dahl/timeline/1960s/november-1962 (last access: 18 June 2016).

SYN: 1. morbilli. 2. rubeola, morbilli. 3. rubeola.

S: 1. DORLAND p. 2063. 2. TERMIUM PLUS (last access: 4 September 2014); GDT – http://www.granddictionnaire.com/ficheOqlf.aspx?Id_Fiche=8383320 (last access: 4 September 2014). 3. EncBrit – http://global.britannica.com/science/measles (last access: 4 September 2014).

CR: exanthem, infestation, MMR vaccine, rubella, virus.