Choleras

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An infectious disease characterized by severe diarrhea and dehydration caused by the ingestion of contaminated water or food
2. A bacterial illness that can lead to rapid dehydration due to profuse watery diarrhea, often spreading in areas with poor sanitation
3. A serious intestinal infection that leads to the loss of fluids and electrolytes, commonly resulting from the consumption of tainted food or water sources

Etymology: "Choleras" is simply the plural of "cholera," the disease name, so it refers to multiple outbreaks or instances of the illness. The disease itself takes its name from Latin "cholera," meaning "bilious disease," which was borrowed from Ancient Greek "kholera," the same word for the illness. The Greek term is closely tied to "choler," the older English word for bile, the yellowish fluid the body was thought to produce in excess when someone was angry. That makes "choler" and "cholera" doublets: two English words that descend from the same source by different routes. "Choler" came to mean anger or irritability, while "cholera" kept its medical sense of a disease marked by bile-like discharge.