water sickness en · NOUN
Etymology
From Middle English watersiknesse, wæterseocnesse, from Old English wætersēocnes (“dropsy”), equivalent to water + sickness.
Meanings
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(archaic, rare, uncountable) Dropsy.
Water sickness, or general dropsy, also frequently takes place among sheep.
1809, Arthur Edmondston, A View of the Ancient and Present State of the Zetland Islands:For water sickness (dropsy), or stones in the bladder, the cure was elder (sambucus, B.P.), for which also it is claimed “all things which are generated on a man's body to loathe, it thoroughly will heal.”
1908, British Medical Journal, page 999: