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Webster 1913 Edition

Calenture

Cal′en-ture

,
Noun.
[F.
calenture
, fr. Sp.
calenture
heat, fever, fr.
calentar
to heat, fr. p. pr. of L.
calere to be warm
.]
(Med.)
A name formerly given to various fevers occuring in tropics; esp. to a form of furious delirium accompanied by fever, among sailors, which sometimes led the affected person to imagine the sea to be a green field, and to throw himself into it.

Cal′en-ture

,
Verb.
I.
To see as in the delirium of one affected with calenture.
[Poetic]
Hath fed on pageants floating through the air
Or
calentures
in depths of limpid flood.
Wordsworth.

Webster 1828 Edition

Calenture

CALENTURE

,
Noun.
A violent ardent fever, incident to persons in hot climates, especially natives of cooler climates. It is attended with delirium, and one of the symptoms is, that the person affected imagines the sea to be a green field, and sometimes attempting to walk in it, is lost.

Definition 2024

calenture

calenture

English

Noun

calenture ‎(plural calentures)

  1. A heat stroke or fever, often suffered in the tropics.
    • 1638, Thomas Herbert, Some Yeares Travels, I:
      To returne: in changing so many parallels, the weather increast from warme to raging hot, the Sunne flaming all day, insomuch that Calentures begun to vexe us.
    • 1719: Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
      Yet even in this voyage I had my misfortunes too; particularly that I was continually sick, being thrown into a violent calenture by the excessive heat of the climate.
  2. A delirium occurring from such symptoms, in which a stricken sailor pictures the sea as grassy meadows and wishes to dive overboard into them.

Translations

Anagrams

Etymology

From Middle French calenture, from Spanish calentura.

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