Leprosy

Quick meaning: Leprosy is a noun meaning (veterenary medicine) A contagious disease causing similar effects in animals, particularly.

Meaning

(veterenary medicine) A contagious disease causing similar effects in animals, particularly.

More Meanings

1. (pathology, medicine) An infectious disease caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae, gradually producing nerve damage and patches of skin necrosis and historically handled by permanently quarantining its sufferers.
2. (figurative) Anything considered similarly permanent, harmful, and communicable, particularly when such a thing should be handled by avoidance or isolation of its victims.
3. (medicine, dated, now usually proscribed) Similar contagious skin diseases causing light patches of scaly skin, particularly psoriasis, syphilis, vitiligo, scabies, and (biblical) the various diseases considered "tzaraath" in the Old Testament.
4. (obsolete, rare) Synonym of leprosarium: a place for the housing of lepers in isolation from the rest of society.

Example Sentences

Then is it surely a leprosy

Sin is a spiritual leprosy.

The great London doctors knew nothing about leprosy and cared less.

The new drug—diaminodiphenylsulphone... offers the first certain cure... and leprosy can be cured in six months

Word Forms

• leprosies

Synonyms for leprosy

Depending on context, synonyms include lepra, mesel, measles, elephantiasis, leprosity, leper.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include lepromatous, leper, tuberculoid, disease, histoid, dimorphous.

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