SCURVY • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Scurvy

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noun

Scurvy n. (Med.) A disease characterized by livid spots, especially about the thighs and legs, due to extravasation of blood, and by spongy gums, and bleeding from almost all the mucous membranes. It is accompanied by paleness, languor, depression, and general debility. It is occasioned by confinement, innutritious food, and hard labor, but especially by lack of fresh vegetable food, or confinement for a long time to a limited range of food, which is incapable of repairing the waste of the system. It was formerly prevalent among sailors and soldiers.

Scurvy grass (Bot.) A kind of cress (Cochlearia officinalis) growing along the seacoast of Northern Europe and in arctic regions. It is a remedy for the scurvy, and has proved a valuable food to arctic explorers. The name is given also to other allied species of plants.

adjective

Scurvy adj. (compar. scurvier; superl. scurviest)

Covered or affected with scurf or scabs; scabby; scurfy; specifically, diseased with the scurvy. "Whatsoever man... be scurvy or scabbed."

Vile; mean; low; vulgar; contemptible. "A scurvy trick." "That scurvy custom of taking tobacco." "(He) spoke spoke such scurvy and provoking terms."

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Etymology of 'Scurvy'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Scurvy" Quotes from Famous Books

... in scattered and inconsiderable quantities. These two races spend most of their time chasing each other in order to keep themselves warm, which they do by degrees which are often registered on a barometer. They also eat each other and get scurvy. Outside of these relaxations their existence is stagnant and unexciting. I sometimes fancy that if I had the misfortune to be born a polar bear or an Esquimo I would not ...

— Here are Ladies • James Stephens

... on their impious heads will pour (1) A shower of snares Of snares (1) and flames a dismal shower; on a man's head would And this their bitter cup must be do wonderful execution. (2) To drink to all eternity: However, I grant it is a scurvy thing enough to ...

— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift

... scraps of skin and leather with which his rigging was here and there bound, to drink water that had gone putrid, his crew dying of hunger and scurvy, this man, firm in his belief of the globular figure of the earth, steered steadily to the northwest, and for nearly four months never saw inhabited land. He estimated that he had sailed over the Pacific not less than twelve thousand miles. He crossed the equator, saw once more ...

— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... forth and fared on among the rubbish heaps, I still following her without her knowledge, till she came to a reed fence, within which was a hut of brick. She entered the hut and I climbed up on the roof and looking down, saw my wife standing by a scurvy black slave, with blubber lips, one of which overlapped the other, like a coverlet, and swept up the sand from the gravel floor, lying upon a bed of sugar-cane refuse and wrapped in an old cloak and a few rags. She kissed the earth before ...

— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous

... their high life below stairs, we were destined to be confronted with a real pedlar. To make the lesson still more poignant for fallen gentlemen like us, he was a pedlar of infinitely more consideration than the sort of scurvy fellows we were taken for: like a lion among mice, or a ship of war bearing down upon two cock-boats. Indeed, he did not deserve the name of pedlar at all: he ...

— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson

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