fever

Pluralfevers

Formsfevers, fevering, fevered

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   An abnormally high body temperature in a person or other mammal, usually caused by disease.

   A high fever can be dangerous if it is not brought down quickly.

   The doctor checked whether her fever had broken overnight.

   Similartemperature

   Note

   The core medical meaning comes through Old English fefer and Old French fievre from Latin febris, and ultimately from a root meaning "to burn." It replaced the native Old English word hriþ. A single episode takes the article or a plural (a fever, both fevers and colds), but you can also speak of fever as a quantity that rises and falls. The old advice to "feed a cold and starve a fever" keeps this sense in everyday talk.

2. 2
   nounusually singular

   A state of heightened excitement or anxiety.

   Like the electric buzz running through a stadium just before the final whistle.

   By election night the whole city was caught up in a fever of anticipation.

   A fever of speculation followed the company's sudden announcement.

   Similarfrenzy, fervor, ferment, furor, excitement

   Oppositecalm

   Note

   Bodily heat turned into emotional heat. Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida already speaks of "an envious fever." Two patterns carry it today. A noun in front names what has excited people, as in war fever. The phrase a fever of names the feeling itself, as in a fever of anticipation. Both work best for excitement shared by a crowd or a city, not for one person's mood.

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountablein compounds

   Any of various particular diseases, such as yellow fever, scarlet fever, or typhoid.

   The expedition was decimated by a fever none of the doctors could identify.

   Port towns were once breeding grounds for fevers carried by mosquitoes.

   Similardisease, illness

   Note

   Here the symptom has become the name of the illness. It usually appears as the second half of a compound, with a preceding word saying which disease is meant: scarlet fever, yellow fever. Used alone, a fever in this sense means an unidentified illness of this kind, not just a raised temperature.

4. 4
   verbintransitive

   To develop a fever or become feverish.

   After the transplant, she continued to fever off and on for three days.

   He fevered overnight, and by morning the ward had started him on antibiotics.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To cause someone to have a fever or to be affected by one.

   Fevered by an infected cut, he slept through most of the week.

   Bad water fevered half the crew before they reached port.

   Similarsicken, infect

   Note

   You will meet this verb mostly as its past participle, used like an adjective: a fevered lip, a fevered brow. The active verb has a long history. Antony and Cleopatra has Shakespeare's "the white hand of a lady fever thee," which also shows the pattern: the cause is the subject, and the person afflicted is the object.

6. 6
   nounslangderogatoryuncountablein compounds

   Sexual attraction toward people of one specific group, used after a word naming that group.

   Clown fever is a running joke on the comedy podcast, where one host admits a soft spot for anyone in face paint.

   The essay argues that white fever in some dating circles is treated as a compliment when it is really a stereotype.

   Note

   Slang that works almost only as the second half of a compound: Asian fever, white fever, even clown fever or blue fever. The first word names the group, and the phrase casts the attraction as aimed at a category rather than at any one person, which is why it so often sounds derogatory. Said of someone else, it usually lands as mockery or accusation, so use it with care.

   His friends teased him that he had a bad case of white fever.

   She rolled her eyes at what she called his Asian fever.

7. 7
   nounneologismcountable

   A gathering or group of stingrays.

   A fever of stingrays swept silently over the lagoon floor.

   The aquarium's newest tank holds a fever of stingrays that visitors can touch as they lean over the rail.

   Note

   This is a recent collective noun. It almost always appears in the full phrase a fever of stingrays, and mostly in fiction and poetry that enjoys its strangeness. Keep the of-phrase in the sentence. Without the stingrays, a reader will hear the illness.

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