Pl. buboes. [a. late L. bubo, ad. Gr. βουβῶν the groin, a swelling in the groin.] An inflamed swelling or abscess in glandular parts of the body, esp. the groin or arm-pits. (An ordinary symptom of the plague in the 17th c.) Also attrib., as in bubo plague.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., VII. lix. (1495), 273. Somtyme a postume comyth of ventosite and of wynde and hight Bubo.
1597. Gerard, Herbal, III. cxxxiii. (1633), 1511. Which imposthume is called Bubo by reason of his lurking in such secret places.
1658. Rowland, trans. Moufet’s Theat. Ins., 1050. A Bubo riseth on a man that he [the scorpion] stings.
1782. W. Heberden, Comment., vii. (1806), 23. These sores therefore, like pestilential buboes, point out the nature of the disorder.
1839–47. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., III. 233/2. A bubo will originate from … inflamed inguinal or axillary glands.
Hence Buboed ppl. a., affected with buboes.
1824–9. Landor, Imag. Conv. (1846), II. 126. They are not blotched and buboed with its pestilence.
