Forms: 1 féfer, -or, 2 feofer, (3 fefre), 3–5 fevere, (4 feavor), 4–5 fevre, fyver(e, 5 febre, (fevire, -oure, fewer), 6–8 feaver, 7 feavour, (feevor, 7–8 fevour), 3– fever. [OE. féfor str. masc., ad. L. febris fem., whence OF. fievre (mod.F. fièvre), Pr., Pg. febre, Sp. fiebre, It. febbre; adopted independently in the Teut. langs.; OHG. fiebar (MHG. vieber, mod.G. fieber) neut., Sw. feber. Da. fever (not in Du.).
The etymology of febris is obscure. Brugmann (Grundriss, II. 92) regards it as a reduplicate formation (:—pre-Latin *bhe-bhr-) on the root which appears in Skr. bhur- to be restless.]
1. Pathol. a. A morbid condition of the system, characterized by undue elevation of the temperature, and excessive change and destruction of the tissues; an instance of this. b. The generic name of a group of diseases agreeing in the above general characteristics, each of which is specially designated by some distinctive appellation, as intermittent, puerperal, scarlet, typhoid, yellow, etc. fever, for which see under the defining word.
c. 1000. Sax. Leechd., I. 148. Gif him fefer deriȝe.
c. 1000. Ags. Gosp., Matt. viii. 15. & he æthran hyre hand, & se fefor [c. 1160, Hatton Gosp., feofer] hiȝ forlet.
a. 1225. Ancr. R., 112. Þet was oðe fefre.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 20963 (Cott.). Man þat in feuer was vnfer.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), I. 333. Men of þat lond haueþ no feuere.
a. 1400–50. Alexander, 2546. Þat he was fallen in a feuire.
1494. Fabyan, Chron., VI. clxv. 160. The Emperoure Charlys remouyd to the Cytie of Mantue, where he was grudgyd with a feuoure.
1547. Boorde, Brev. Health, cxxxv. (1557), 49 b. A Feuer is an vnnaturall heate grounded in the hearte and lyuer.
1598. B. Jonson, Ev. Man in Hum., II. iii.
| I will once more striue, | |
| (Euen in despight of hell) my selfe to be, | |
| And shake the feauer off that thus shakes me. |
1614. Markham, Cheap Husb., I. viii. (1668), 48. Feavers of all sorts as the Quotidian [etc.].
1678. Hatton Corr. (1878), 169. For god saike have a care of coming neare those that have the feavour.
1781. Gibbon, Decl. & F., II. 134, foot-n. She [Constantina] had preceded her husband; but died of a fever on the road.
1840. Dickens, Barn. Rudge, v. The fever has left him, and the doctor says he will soon mend.
1856. Emerson, English Traits, Character, Wks. (Bohn) II. 57. His [an Englishman’s] hilarity is like an attack of fever.
† c. Fever ague [ad. OF. fievre ague, lit. ‘acute fever’]: = AGUE. Fever lent [ad. OF. fievre lente]: a slow fever. Obs.
1338. R. Brunne, Chron. (Rolls), 15729. Þe ffeuere agu ful sore hym hatte.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVII. cxxxvi. (1495), 692. Oleum rosaceum helpyth ayenst … fyre agu.
c. 1400. in Rel. Ant., I. 54. For the fever lente: quha that has the fever agu, that men calles lente evell, if the sekeman heved werkes that he may noght slepp, tak [etc.].
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 163. Fyvere agu, querquera.
† 2. In pl. with singular sense. Obs.
c. 1000. Ags. Gosp., Luke iv. 38. Ða wæs simones sweȝer ȝeswenced on mycelum feferum [c. 1160, Hatton Gosp., feofren].
1382. Wyclif, Matt. viii. 14. He say his wyues moder liggynge and shakun with feueris.
c. 1450. Life of St. Cuthbert (Surtees), 5583. Þar was a clerk … þat þe feuers had.
1491. Caxton, Vitas Patr. (W. de W., 1495), I. xl. 602 a/1. She hadde the febres or asces.
a. 1605. Montgomerie, Flyting, 314. The feavers, the fearcie, with the speinȝie flees.
3. A state of intense nervous excitement, agitation, heat; an instance of this.
1586. T. B., La Primaud. Fr. Acad., I. 666. There are (as I take it) two causes intermingled, which breede this franticke feaver of our France, the one proceeding from the Estate, the other from religion.
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., I. iii. 133.
| Euery step | |
| Exampled by the first pace that is sicke | |
| Of his Superiour, growes to an enuious Feauer | |
| Of pale and bloodlesse Emulation. |
1649. Jer. Taylor, Gt. Exemp., II. Ad Ser. xii. 57. The spirits leap out from their cells of austerity and sobriety, and are warmed into feavers and wildnesses, and forfeiture of all judgement and rigorous understanding.
1737. Pope, Hor. Epist., I. i. 57.
| Know, there are Words, and Spells, which can controll | |
| (Between the Fits) this Fever of the soul. |
1779. Mad. D’Arblay, Diary, Feb. We also talked much of Dr. Johnson, and she confessed to me that both she and Miss S. S. were in fevers in his presence, from apprehension.
1814. Sir R. Wilson, Diary (1861), II. 353. The fever excited by the news from France has not yet been allayed.
1842. J. H. Newman, Par. Serm. (ed. 2), V. viii. 120. If there was a mode of life free from from tumult, anxiety, excitement, and fever of mind, it was the care of a garden.
1873. Black, Pr. Thule, v. 75. A fever of anticipation, of fear, and of hope combined, seemed to stir in his blood and throb in his brain.
1883. E. Pennell-Elmhirst, The Cream of Leicestershire, 424. At Willoughby a fine fox set the field in a fever; and then—found some open mouth leading to the bowels of the earth.
4. attrib. and Comb. a. simple attrib., as fever-bale, -dream, -fit, -glow, -hospital, -life, -nest, -patient, -spasm, -thirst, -vomit, -ward; fever-like adj. and adv. b. objective, as fever-cooling, destroying adjs. c. instrumental, as fever-cracking, -haunted, -maddened, -shaken, -sick, -smitten, -stricken, -troubled, -weakened adjs.
1844. Mrs. Browning, Bertha, ix.
| Little sister, thou art pale! | |
| Ah, I have a wandering brain— | |
| But I lose that *fever-bale | |
| And my thoughts grow calm again. |
1727–46. Thomson, Summer, 667.
| Lay me reclin’d | |
| Beneath the spreading Tamarind that shakes, | |
| Fann’d by the Breeze, its *Fever-cooling Fruit. |
1861. Mrs. Norton, Lady La G., IV. 331.
| Nor fresh cooling drinks | |
| To woo the *fever-cracking lip which shrinks | |
| Even from such solace. |
1884. Syd. Sac. Lex., *Fever-destroying tree, the Eucalyptus globulus.
1834. Mrs. Hemans, Eng. Martyrs, i. 1.
| Edith. Morn once again! Morn in the lone dim cell, | |
| The cavern of the prisoner’s *fever dream. |
1681. W. Temple, Memoirs, III. Wks. 1731, I. 343. Receiv’d Assurance of the King’s certain Recovery, by being free of any return of his *Feaver Fits.
1830. Scott, Demonol., i. 39. A sudden and temporary fever-fit.
1842. Emerson, Lect., Transcendentalist, Wks. (Bohn), II. 289. When shall I die and be relieved of the responsibility of seeing an Universe which I do not use? I wish to exchange this flash-of-lightning faith for continuous daylight, this *fever-glow for a benign climate.
1864. Kingsley, Rom. & Teut., i. (1875), 13. Italy conquered, and Rome sacked by Visigoth, by Ostrogoth, by Vandal, till nothing was left save *fever-haunted ruins.
1877. Gen. Gordon, in Pall Mall G., 4 March (1884), 11/1. It is a *fever life I lead.
a. 1577. Gascoigne, Wks. (1587), 5.
| And *feuerlike I feede my fancie styll | |
| With such repast as most empaires my health. |
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., vii. Argument.
| When the Higre takes her, | |
| How fever-like the sickness shakes her. |
1884. Syd. Soc. Lex., *Fever-nests, localities where … fever is generated.
1802. Med. Jrnl., VIII. 562. The reception of *fever patients.
1683. Chalkhill, Thealma & Cl., 26.
| Like a distemper’d body *fever-shaken, | |
| When with combustion every limb is taken. |
1599. Peele, David & Bethsabe, Wks. (Rtldg.), 466/1.
| Lie down upon thy bed | |
| Feigning thee *fever-sick and ill-at-ease. |
1884. Syd. Soc. Lex., Feversick.
1884. Pall Mall G., 23 Feb., 4. Vera Cruz, that … *fever-smitten port.
1863. W. Phillips, Speeches, vi. 152. Slavery has deeper root here than any aristocratic institution has in Europe; and Politics is but the common pulse-beat of which Revolution is the *fever spasm.
1818. Shelley, Marenghi, viii.
| And in the roofless huts of vast morasses, | |
| Deserted by the *fever-stricken serf, | |
| All overgrown with reeds and long rank grasses, | |
| And hillocks heaped of moss-inwoven turf. |
a. 1835. Mrs. Hemans, Ancestral Song, 77.
| All the *fever-thirst is still’d, | |
| All the air with peace is fill’d. |
1836. J. H. Newman, in Lyra Apost. (1849), 87.
| We with death’s foretaste alternate | |
| Our labour’s dint and sorrow’s weight, | |
| Save, in that *fever-troubled state | |
| When pain and care hold sway. |
1671. Salmon, Syn. Med., III. lxxxii. 713. If there be *Feaver vomit.
1802. Med. Jrnl., VIII. 562. By converting these *fever-wards … to the purpose of a general house of recovery for all infectious fever which might occur in the town.
1597. Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., I. i. 140.
| The Wretch, whose *Feauer-weakned ioynts, | |
| Like strengthlesse Hindges, buckle vnder life, | |
| Impatient of his Fit, breakes like a fire | |
| Out of his keepers armes. |
5. Special comb.: fever-bark, bark useful in cases of fever; fever-blister (see quot.); fever-bush (see quot. 1884); fever-fly, the Dilophus vulgaris; fever-heat, the high temperature of the body in fever (on some thermometers marked at 112° F.), also fig.; † fever-hectic, = hectic fever (see HECTIC); fever-nut, the seeds of Cæsalpina Bonducella; fever-powder, a remedy for fever; fever-root (see quot. 1884), also fever and ague root; fever-sore (see quot.); fever-trap, a place where one is liable to be caught by fever; fever-tree, -twig (see quots.); fever-weed, a plant of the genus Eryngium; fever-wood (see quot.); fever-wort, (a) (see quot.); (b) a plant of the genus Eupatorium (Worc.). Also FEVER-LURDEN.
1830. Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., 205. A kind of *fever bark is obtained at Sierra Leone from Rondeletia febrifuga.
1884. Syd. Soc. Lex., *Fever blister, the herpes of the lips which occurs frequently in feverish or catarrhal disturbances of the body.
1792. J. Belknap, Hist. New-Hampshire, III. 97. The Spice-wood (laurus benzoin) or as it is commonly called *Fever-bush, is another species of the laurus, common in New-Hampshire.
1884. Syd. Soc. Lex., Feverbush, the Benzoin odoriferum and also the Prinos verticillatus.
1889. Miss E. A. Ormerod, Injurious Insects (1890), 129. *Fever Fly.
1838. Prescott, Ferd. & Is., II. vi. (1849), II. 367. Ximenes whose zeal had mounted up to *fever heat in that excitement of suceess, was not to be cooled by any opposition, however formidable.
1889. Jessopp, Coming of Friars, vii. 309. The year 1630 … when the Sabbatarian controversy was at its height, and the feeling of the country was approaching fever heat.
1607. Topsell, Serpents (1653), 725. For *Fever-hecticks they prepare them thus.
1795. R. Anderson, Life Johnson, 14. He had for his school-fellows Dr. James, inventor of the *fever-powder, Mr. Lowe, [etc.].
1853. Dunglison, Med. Dict. (ed. 9), *Fever-root.
1884. Syd. Soc. Lex., Fever-root, the Pterospora andromedea: also the Triosteum perfoliatum.
1676. T. Glover, in Phil. Trans., XI. 630. The English call it the *Fever and Ague-root.
1860. Worcester, *Fever-sore, the common name of a species of caries or necrosis.
1891. C. Creighton, Hist. Epidemics, 589. More recent visitors to the Cape de Verde islands have remarked upon their towns and villages as *fever-traps.
1876. Forest & Stream, 13 July, 375/3. The large tribe of the Eucalyptus (honey or fever trees).
1884. Syd. Soc. Lex., Fever tree, the Pinckneya pubens. Ibid., *Fever twig, the Celastrus scandens.
1855. H. Clarke, Dict., *Fever-weed, an eryngium.
1884. Syd. Soc. Lex., *Fever wood, the Benzoin odoriferum.
1611. Cotgr., Sacotin, *feauerwort.
1829. Loudon, Encycl. Plants, 170. Triosteum, feverwort.
