dengue

Etymology

It is borrowed from Spanish dengue, a word of the Spanish of the Caribbean recorded from 1828 or earlier,^[2][3][4] or from 1827 in Barnhart's dating.^[5] Its further origin is uncertain:^[2] most dictionaries take it from Swahili, from Swahili kidingapopo or its base dinga (“cramp-like seizure”),^{[4][3][6][7][8][9]} and the Merriam-Webster Unabridged compares Giryama kidhinghidhyo (“fever”).^[10][5] The revised OED explains the Swahili name as the class prefix ki-, a base reportedly meaning painful cramps, and popo (“bat”), and quotes an 1881 report from Zanzibar of a disease called “Ki-dinga Pepo”, with pepo (“spirit”), epidemic there in 1823 and 1870; it suggests that the word may have reached the Caribbean with the disease on ships carrying enslaved people.^[2] The word was then identified with an older Spanish word of the same spelling meaning fastidiousness or prudery, recorded from 1732,^[2][4][11] perhaps because sufferers walk stiffly and carefully,^[6][5][4] or because patients dislike moving;^[3] the OED also allows that the disease's name may be a mocking use of that word.^[2] Weekley derived the Spanish word from denegar (“to refuse”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

An acute fever with rash and severe pain in the joints and muscles: 1828, in the Charleston Courier of 15 July.^[2][10][6]

Semantic evolution

The name came into English with the epidemic of 1827–28 in the West Indies;^[6][2] American medical journals of 1828 reported that in Havana the fever was called Dingee, Dengue or Danga, and that el dengue meant "affectation".^[2] In the British West Indies the name was altered to dandy, recorded from 1828,^[5][7][8] whence dandy fever;^[7] Weekley adds that the disease was also called "the giraffe", both names alluding to the sufferers' stiff neck and shoulders.^[8] The English word is still in use for the tropical disease now known to be caused by a virus that mosquitoes carry.^[10][4]

Timeline

• 1828 – an acute fever with rash and severe joint pain, epidemic in warm regions.^[2][10][5]
• 1828 – dandy, an altered form, in the British West Indies.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. An acute infectious disease caused by a virus that mosquitoes of the genus Aedes transmit, with sudden fever, headache, severe pain in the joints and a rash, chiefly in tropical regions; also called dengue fever and breakbone fever.^[10][12][2]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins