Greatpox

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An archaic name for syphilis, a sexually transmitted infection that was once widely feared across Europe
2. Historically, the old term for the venereal disease now known as syphilis, spread through sexual contact
3. A former name for syphilis, the serious sexually transmitted infection that was called the great pox in earlier centuries

Etymology: The "great pox" was once a common name for syphilis, and the contrast it drew was deliberate. Early modern English speakers set it against the "little pox", their name for smallpox, so that the more feared disease was given the larger title. The name was tied to the belief that syphilis was a more serious affliction than the ordinary pox, a term that by then covered a range of skin-marking illnesses. The compound is simply "great" and "pox" joined together, with "pox" originally a plural form of "pock", a pustule or pimple. Writers who used the spelling "great-pox" with a hyphen, or the closed form "greatpox", were recording the same term, which shows how loosely compounds were written before spelling settled. Today the phrase survives mainly in historical writing and as an old name for the disease.