Lurgi

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A jokingly vague name for a minor, unidentified sickness that someone has caught ; a German industrial method for converting coal into synthetic gas under pressure
2. A playful term for some nagging, unnamed bug or ailment ; a coal gasification process developed by a German engineering firm to produce fuel gas
3. An informal label for a mild, unspecified illness picked up from others ; a pressurized German technique for turning coal into combustible gas

Etymology: The word that became a catch-all for mysterious illness started life as an insult. Medieval English had "lurdan", a name for a sluggard, a fool or a good-for-nothing, borrowed through Old French "lourdin" from "lourd", meaning clumsy, oafish or heavy. Behind that lies Late Latin "lurdus", meaning dull or stupid, probably from Latin "lūridus", "sallow" or "ghastly", a sense that reached the modern French word by way of a slow, sluggish heaviness. The disease sense came much later and owes its fame to radio. In the 1954 episode "Lurgi Strikes Britain" of the British comedy show The Goon Show, Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes invented "the Dreaded Lurgi", a fictitious and highly infectious illness used as a scam. The joke caught on, and "lurgy" became a cheerful way to name any vague ailment, the sort of bug you might catch from a colleague.

Synonyms: lurgy, bug, malady