Words at Play : Words that Come from Characters in Books
Definition:
: a chronic, contagious, usually venereal, and often congenital disease caused by a spirochete
About the Word:
Very few sexually transmitted diseases are cheery, and syphilis is no exception. However, in the realm of STDs, it is an exception insofar as it takes its name from the character in a work of literature.
Syphilis was the name of the ostensible first sufferer of the disease, a shepherd and hero (if such a word can be used here) of the 1530 poem written by the Italian physician Girolamo Fracastoro, Syphilis sive Morbus Gallicus.
Example:
"Untreated syphilis doesn't just go away." — Kathy McCoy & Charles Wibbelsman, The Teenage Body Book, 1992
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