measles

1. (pathology) An acute and highly contagious disease which often afflicts children caused by the virus Measles morbillivirus and causing red rashes, fever, runny nose, coughing, and red eyes.Examples: "Maybe it's the 'measles. They say they're going around the neighborhood."; "Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it."; "In the camps a case of measles is defined as a generalized rash of three or more days duration, with a fever of at least 38.8°C.., and any one of the following: cough, coryza or conjunctivitis."uncountable

2. (pathology, obsolete) Any disease causing red rashes.obsoleteuncountable

3. (obsolete) Used as an intensifier.Examples: "Why the meazills, should you stand heere, with your traine..."obsoleteuncountable

4. (veterinary medicine) Synonym of cysticercosis: A disease of livestock or meat caused by the presence of tapeworm larvae.Examples: "The Swyne dyed of the Measils."; "Porcine measles, thought by classical writers to be leprosy, is actually the result of tapeworm cysts which cause ulcerations of the pig's tongue."Synonyms: cysticercosisuncountable

5. (botany, obsolete) Any disease causing a tree's bark to become rough and irregular.Examples: "Their fruit-trees are subject to two diseases, the Meazels... and lowsiness."obsoleteuncountable

6. (medicine) plural of measle: a red spot forming part of a rash, (now) particularly those caused by M. morbillivirus.Examples: "Others take a fether, and dippe it in the saide water, and therwith they annoynte all the Measells of the Face when they are come forth."Synonyms: morbilli, rubeola, measlingsform-ofpluraluncountable