POX

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does pox mean? 

• POX (noun)
  The noun POX has 2 senses:

1. a common venereal disease caused by the treponema pallidum spirochete; symptoms change through progressive stages; can be congenital (transmitted through the placenta)

2. a contagious disease characterized by purulent skin eruptions that may leave pock marks

  Familiarity information: POX used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• POX (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A common venereal disease caused by the treponema pallidum spirochete; symptoms change through progressive stages; can be congenital (transmitted through the placenta)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

lues; lues venerea; pox; syph; syphilis

Hypernyms ("pox" is a kind of...):

Cupid's disease; Cupid's itch; dose; sexually transmitted disease; social disease; STD; VD; venereal disease; venereal infection; Venus's curse (a communicable infection transmitted by sexual intercourse or genital contact)

Meronyms (parts of "pox"):

chancre (a small hard painless nodule at the site of entry of a pathogen (as syphilis))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "pox"):

primary syphilis (the first stage; characterized by a chancre at the site of infection)

secondary syphilis (the second stage; characterized by eruptions of the skin and mucous membrane)

tertiary syphilis (the third stage; characterized by involvement of internal organs especially the brain and spinal cord as well as the heart and liver)

neurosyphilis (syphilis of the central nervous system)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A contagious disease characterized by purulent skin eruptions that may leave pock marks

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Hypernyms ("pox" is a kind of...):

contagion; contagious disease (any disease easily transmitted by contact)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "pox"):

smallpox; variola; variola major (a highly contagious viral disease characterized by fever and weakness and skin eruption with pustules that form scabs that slough off leaving scars)

chickenpox; varicella (an acute contagious disease caused by herpes varicella zoster virus; causes a rash of vesicles on the face and body)

cowpox; vaccinia (a viral disease of cattle causing a mild skin disease affecting the udder; formerly used to inoculate humans against smallpox)

 Context examples 

A synthetic HIV vaccine based on a recombinant canary pox virus vector expressing the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) glycoprotein gp160.

(HIVgP160 Vaccine, NCI Thesaurus)

The cynomolgus monkey is most commonly utilized in the pre-clinical setting for neuroscience pre-clinical research and has also been shown to be a reservoir for the Ebola virus, monkey pox, and B-virus.

(Cynomolgus Maritius Monkey, NCI Thesaurus)

As every person called up made exactly the same appearance he had done in the world, it gave me melancholy reflections to observe how much the race of human kind was degenerated among us within these hundred years past; how the pox, under all its consequences and denominations had altered every lineament of an English countenance; shortened the size of bodies, unbraced the nerves, relaxed the sinews and muscles, introduced a sallow complexion, and rendered the flesh loose and rancid.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I could plainly discover whence one family derives a long chin; why a second has abounded with knaves for two generations, and fools for two more; why a third happened to be crack-brained, and a fourth to be sharpers; whence it came, what Polydore Virgil says of a certain great house, Nec vir fortis, nec foemina casta; how cruelty, falsehood, and cowardice, grew to be characteristics by which certain families are distinguished as much as by their coats of arms; who first brought the pox into a noble house, which has lineally descended scrofulous tumours to their posterity.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)