French disease en · PROPN
Etymology
The full explanation of why syphilis was called the French disease as a calque across various languages involves a 1495 outbreak involving French soldiers (more in Wikipedia at History of syphilis); but it is also true that this term is one of several that blame othered ethnicities for distasteful and unseemly things.
Meanings
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(dated, euphemistic) Syphilis.
Although the Inquisition trials dealing with the French disease are few in number, the cases provide competing opinions about the cause of illness, thereby providing some insights into how the categories of natural and supernatural[…]
2010 November 30, L. McGough, Gender, Sexuality, and Syphilis in Early Modern Venice: The Disease that Came to Stay, Springer, →ISBN, page 88:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| the French disease | canonical | lexicographic |
Relateds
Synonyms
Translations (9)
de Franzosenkrankheit (syphilis) · fr mal de Naples (syphilis) · pl francuska choroba (syphilis) · ko 당옴 (syphilis) · fr gale de Naples (syphilis) · la morbus gallicus (syphilis) · fi ranskantauti (syphilis) · es mal francés (syphilis) · fr mal italien (syphilis)