Malaria Definition

mə-lârē-ə
noun
Unwholesome or poisonous air, as from marshy ground; miasma.
Webster's New World
An infectious disease, generally intermittent and recurrent, caused by any of various protozoans (genus Plasmodium) that are parasitic in the red blood corpuscles and are transmitted to humans by the bite of an infected anopheles mosquito: it is characterized by severe chills and fever.
Webster's New World

Origin of Malaria

  • Italian from mala aria bad air (from the belief that malaria was caused by vapors emanating from swamps, rather than mosquitos that bred there) mala feminine of malo bad (from Latin malus mel-3 in Indo-European roots) aria air aria

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

  • From Italian mala aria meaning "bad air".

    From Wiktionary

Malaria Is Also Mentioned In

Find Similar Words

Find similar words to malaria using the buttons below.

Words Starting With

Words Ending With

Unscrambles

malaria