murrain

English

Alternative forms

• murrein (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English moreyn, from Middle French morine, and Anglo-Norman mourine, moreyn, from Medieval Latin morticinium, ultimately from a form of Latin morior (“to die”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈmʌɹɪn/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

murrain (countable and uncountable, plural murrains)

1. (archaic) Plague, infectious disease, pestilence.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     For heauen it selfe shall their successe enuy, / And them with plagues and murrins pestilent / Consume, till all their warlike puissaunce be spent.

   • 1599 (first performance; published 1600), Thomas Dekker, “The Shomakers Holiday. Or The Gentle Craft. […]”, in The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker […], volume I, London: John Pearson […], published 1873, →OCLC, Act IV, scene ii, page 54:

     [Raph.] By this old shooe I shall find out my wife.
     Firke. Ha, ha olde shooe that wert new, how a murren came this ague fit of foolishnesse upon thee!

2. (archaic) Curse.
   • 1802, Joanna Baillie, A Series of Plays on the Passions of the Mind, III, The Second Marriage: Act 2, Scene 5:

     Nurse. Let him take what he gets, an' a murrain to him! he had no business to bring her here to torment us all, after the dear lady we have lost.

   • 1825 June 22, [Walter Scott], chapter VII, in Tales of the Crusaders. […], volume II (The Betrothed), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC, page 187:

     A murrain on thy voice! it is enough to fray every hawk from the perch.

   • 1930, Ogden Nash, Lines to Be Mumbled at Ovington's:

     A murrain on you, Reverend Apse/I hope you get caught in a vicious moral lapse.

   • 1935, Ezra Pound, Canto XLV:

     Usura is a murrain, usura blunteth the needle in the maid’s hand and stoppeth the spinner’s cunning.

3. (veterinary medicine, chiefly historical) Any of several highly infectious diseases of cattle, such as anthrax, or a particular epizootic thereof.

Derived terms

• steppe murrain

Related terms

• murrion

Translations

disease of cattle

• Arabic: مَوْتَان (mawtān)
• Galician: morriña (gl) f, rabuxa f
• Greek: επιζωοτία (el) f (epizootía)
• Irish:

  Old Irish: moirtchenn m or n

• Macedonian: чу́ма f (čúma)
• Ottoman Turkish: موتان (mutan)
• Polish: mór (pl) m, pomór (pl) m
• Portuguese: morrinha (pt) f
• Russian: падёж (ru) m (padjóž), мор (ru) m (mor)
• Spanish: morriña (es) f