smallpox

Etymology

It is formed from English small + pox,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} and until the mid 18th century it was generally spelled with a space between its parts.^[2] It follows the slightly earlier small-pock, a pustule of the disease,^[2][3][8] and was named in contrast to the great pox, syphilis.^[9][3][6] Pox is an alteration of pocks, the plural of pock,^{[10][11][3][9]} from Old English pocc (“pustule, blister, ulcer”);^[3][9] small is from smæl.^[9][3] Etymonline compares French petite vérole.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The pustules of the disease, and the disease itself: 1562, in Bullein's Comfortable Regiment and Ward's translation of Roussat.^[2][5] Etymonline finds small pokkes in the 1510s,^[3] and Dictionary.com dates the word to 1510–20;^[4] the OED records small-pock for the disease from about 1510.^[2] Etymonline dates small-pock to the mid 15th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The plural first named the pustules themselves, a use obsolete by the end of the 18th century, and then the disease that produces them.^[2] From 1793 it was also used, with a distinguishing word, for sheep-pox.^[2] From 1759 to 1837 a smallpox cowrie or smallpox shell was a cowrie marked as if with the rash.^[2] Johnson (1755) called it an eruptive distemper of great malignity.^[7] The verb, to scar as if with smallpox, is recorded from 1864, and to infect or inoculate with it from 1886.^[2] In American underworld slang, to have smallpox was to be wanted on a warrant, because anyone in the company of such a person could also be arrested.^[12]

Timeline

• c. 1510 – small-pock, the disease.^[2] Etymonline finds small pokkes in the 1510s.^[3]
• 1562 – the pustules of the disease (obsolete by 1797), and the disease itself.^[2][5]
• 1759 – smallpox cowrie (obsolete by 1837).^[2]
• 1793 – sheep-pox.^[2]
• 1864 – verb, to scar as with smallpox.^[2]
• 1886 – verb, to infect or inoculate with smallpox.^[2]
• 1940 – have smallpox, to be wanted on a warrant.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A highly contagious viral disease with high fever and a rash of pustules that leave pitted scars, now eradicated by vaccination; variola.^[6][5][8]

Verb

1. To infect with smallpox, or to scar as if with it.^[5][2]

Related words

• pox
• pock
• chickenpox
• small-pock
• great pox

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
7. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
12. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com