The Collaborative International Dictionary
Hectic \Hec"tic\, a. [F. hectique, Gr. ? habitual, consumptive, fr. ? habit, a habit of body or mind, fr. ? to have; akin to Skr. sah to overpower, endure; cf. AS. sige, sigor, victory, G. sieg, Goth. sigis. Cf. Scheme.]
Habitual; constitutional; pertaining especially to slow waste of animal tissue, as in consumption; as, a hectic type in disease; a hectic flush.
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In a hectic condition; having hectic fever; consumptive; as, a hectic patient.
Hectic fever (Med.), a fever of irritation and debility, occurring usually at a advanced stage of exhausting disease, as a in pulmonary consumption.
Usage examples of "hectic fever".
The infection was spreading across Seregil's thin chest, and hectic fever spots bloomed over his cheekbones, giving his face its only color.
Tonno showed no signs of waking-and the hectic fever-spots in his cheeks grew brighter as his face grew paler.
But the imprudence of man begins many things which, savouring of present good, conceal the poison that is latent, as I said before of the hectic fever.
And it falls out in this case, as the physicians say of an hectic fever, that at first it is easily cured and hard to be known, but in process of time, not being observed or resisted in the beginning, it becomes easy to be known but very difficult to be cured.