The Collaborative International Dictionary
Cholera \Chol"er*a\, n. [L., a bilious disease. See Choler.] (Med.) One of several diseases affecting the digestive and intestinal tract and more or less dangerous to life, esp. the one commonly called Asiatic cholera.
Asiatic cholera, a malignant and rapidly fatal disease, originating in Asia and frequently epidemic in the more filthy sections of other lands, to which the germ or specific poison may have been carried. It is characterized by diarrhea, rice-water evacuations, vomiting, cramps, pinched expression, and lividity, rapidly passing into a state of collapse, followed by death, or by a stage of reaction of fever.
Cholera bacillus. See Comma bacillus.
Cholera infantum, a dangerous summer disease, of infants, caused by hot weather, bad air, or poor milk, and especially fatal in large cities.
Cholera morbus, a disease characterized by vomiting and purging, with gripings and cramps, usually caused by imprudence in diet or by gastrointestinal disturbance.
Chicken cholera. See under Chicken.
Hog cholera. See under Hog.
Sporadic cholera, a disease somewhat resembling the Asiatic cholera, but originating where it occurs, and rarely becoming epidemic.
WordNet
n. severe gastroenteritis of unknown etiology; characterized by severe colic and vomiting and diarrhea [syn: collywobbles]
Usage examples of "cholera morbus".
The fatal illness in 1852 of Bartlett's mother, and of her husband's brother in 1851, were also recorded, their respective certificates of death citing perforated ulcer and cholera morbus.
Don't imagine that you have changed any great thing in the universe because your stoop-galant is called the cholera morbus, and because your boree is called the cachucha.
While the pestilence of the great pocks was previously known here (and not surprisingly, in view of the people's general licentiousness), it appears that the plagues of the buboes, the cholera morbus, the small pocks, the pease pocks, and the measles were not.
Danglars by the unexpected appearance of the brigade of soldiers, and by the disclosure which had followed, the mansion was deserted with as much rapidity as if a case of plague or of cholera morbus had broken out among the guests.
Now it chanced that the Cigarette had passed some years of his life in Egypt, where he had made acquaintance with two very bad things, cholera morbus and pashas.
He had known plagues in which entire households were struck down overnight: the cholera morbus, too.
Well, if ever a man with the gaol-fever, or the plague, or the cholera morbus, sets foot in this apartment, God help you all.