rheum
See also: Rheum
English
WOTD – 22 February 2012
Etymology
From Anglo-Norman reume, from Late Latin rheuma, from Ancient Greek ῥεῦμα (rheûma, “stream, humour”).
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /ɹuːm/
- Rhymes: -uːm
Noun
rheum (countable and uncountable, plural rheums)
- (uncountable) Watery or thin discharge of serum or mucus, especially from the eyes or nose, formerly thought to cause disease. [from 14th c.]
- 1599, Thomas Nashe, Nashes Lenten Stuffe:
- and there built ſutlers booths and tabernacles, to canopie their heads in from the rhewme of the heauens, or the clouds diſſoluing Cataracts.
- 1916, James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Macmillan Press Ltd, 102
- He wore about his shoulders a heavy cloak; his pale face was drawn and his voice broken with rheum.
- 1599, Thomas Nashe, Nashes Lenten Stuffe:
- Illness or disease thought to be caused by such secretions; a cold, catarrh; rheumatism. [from 14th c.]
- 1603, John Florio, transl.; Michel de Montaigne, chapter 8, in The Essayes, […], book II, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:
- he […] had all his faculties free and easie, onely a rheume excepted that fell into his stomacke.
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- (poetic) Tears. [from 16th c.]
Hyponyms
- (dried rheum around eyes): crusty (slang), gound (UK dialectal), sleep, sleepy dust (informal)
Derived terms
- rheumatic
- rheumatism
- rheumy
Translations
nose discharge
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eye discharge — see gound
illness
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