chickenpox
or chick·en pox
a disease, commonly of children, caused by the varicella zoster virus and characterized by mild headache and fever, malaise, and eruption of blisters on the skin and mucous membranes.
Origin of chickenpox
1- Also called varicella.
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use chickenpox in a sentence
In contrast, the actual chicken pox virus long ago exited my bloodstream and is not detectable.
For example, though I had chicken pox decades ago, I still have antibody to chicken pox.
This can look for all the world like primary kid-based chicken pox.
Barbara Walters Hit With Chicken Pox—a Rare Malady Among Octogenarians | Kent Sepkowitz | January 29, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTThough chicken pox kills few people, adults generally are the ones it does kill, usually in the form of a viral pneumonia.
Barbara Walters Hit With Chicken Pox—a Rare Malady Among Octogenarians | Kent Sepkowitz | January 29, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTAnd chicken pox, let the record show, is not a great disease in adults.
Barbara Walters Hit With Chicken Pox—a Rare Malady Among Octogenarians | Kent Sepkowitz | January 29, 2013 | THE DAILY BEAST
They took it like scarlet fever or chicken-pox, and feel all the more secure now for having had it.
Sinister Street, vol. 1 | Compton MackenzieIt was like toothache or mumps or chicken-pox, an ignoble, complaint of which one is ashamed, but before which one is helpless.
The Honorable Percival | Alice Hegan RiceI understand nobody who had been vaccinated got any of the chicken-pox, as you call it.
The Clarion | Samuel Hopkins AdamsChicken pox, too, differs essentially from smallpox in the course of its development.
The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) | Grant HagueAn eruption of chicken pox does not burst out all over the body at once, but appears in successive rashes.
The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) | Grant Hague
British Dictionary definitions for chickenpox
/ (ˈtʃɪkɪnˌpɒks) /
a highly communicable viral disease most commonly affecting children, characterized by slight fever and the eruption of a rash
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Scientific definitions for chickenpox
[ chĭk′ən-pŏks′ ]
A highly contagious infectious disease, usually of children, caused by the varicella-zoster virus of the genus Varicellavirus. The infection is characterized by fever, and itching skin blisters that start on the trunk of the body and spread to the extremities. Also called varicella
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Cultural definitions for chicken pox
A mild but highly contagious disease, caused by a virus and characterized by slight fever and the eruption of blisters on the skin. Chicken pox is classified as a disease of childhood, although it can occur in adults.
Notes for chicken pox
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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