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Definition: Pertussis |
PertussisNoun1. A disease of the respiratory mucous membrane. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Etymology: Pertussis \Per*tus"sis\, noun. [New Latin expression, from the Latin expression per through, very tussis cough.]. (Websters 1913) |
| Domain | Definitions |
Health | An acute, highly contagious infection of the respiratory tract, most frequently affecting young children, usually caused by Bordetella pertussis; a similar illness has been associated with infection by B. parapertussis and B. bronchiseptica. It is characterized by a catarrhal stage, beginning after an incubation period of about two weeks, with slight fever, sneezing, running at the nose, and a dry cough. In a week or two the paroxysmal stage begins, with the characteristic paroxysmal cough, consisting of a deep inspiration, followed by a series of quick, short coughs, continuing until the air is expelled from the lungs; the close of the paroxysm is marked by a long-drawn, shrill, whooping inspiration, due to spasmodic closure of the glottis. This stage lasts three to four weeks, after which the convalescent stage begins, in which paroxysms grow less frequent and less violent, and finally cease. Called also whooping cough. (references) |
Medicine | An acute infectious disease characterised by coughing spasms that end with a shrill crowing sound on inspiration. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The disease was recognizably described as early as 1578, and its causative organism, Bordetella pertussis, was isolated in pure culture in 1906 by Jules Bordet and Octave Gengou. The complete B. pertussis genome of 4,086,186 base pairs was sequenced in 2002.
The disease is characterized by a cough, fever, sneezing, and runny nose. After several weeks the cough changes character, with paroxysms of coughing followed by an inspiratory "whooping" sound. Coughing fits may be followed by vomiting, which in severe cases leads to malnutrition. Other complications of the disease include pneumonia, encephalitis, and secondary bacterial superinfection.
The disease is spread by contact with airborne discharges from the mucous membranes of infected people. Treatment of the disease with antibiotics (often erythromycin or chloramphenicol) results in the person becoming less infectious but probably does not significantly alter the outcome of the disease.
Pertussis vaccines were initially formulated in 1926 as whole-cell preparations but are now available as acellular preparations, which cause fewer side effects. They offer protection for only a few years, and are given so that immunity lasts through childhood, the time of greatest exposure and greatest risk. The immunizations are often given in combination with tetanus and diphtheria immunizations, at ages 2, 4, and 6 months, and later at 15-18 months and 4-6 years. The acellular vaccine preparations are being evaluated for their safety in adolescents and adults. Traditionally, Pertussis vaccines are not given after age seven, as the frequency of side effects associated with the immunization increased with age. The most serious side-effects of immunization are neurological: they include seizures and hypotonic episodes.
The disease is much milder in adults than in children and many cases go undiagnosed.
Most human cases of pertussis are caused by B. pertussis, initially thought to be the only cause of human pertussis: some cases, however, are caused by a related bacterium, B. parapertussis. Similar syndromes are caused in animals by B. bronchiseptica and in birds by B. avium and B. hinzii.
Bordetella pertussis elaborates several virulence factors, including: pertussis toxin, an adenylate cyclase toxin, filamentous hemagglutinin, a tracheal cytotoxin, fimbriae, and pertactin.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Pertussis."
Synonym: PertussisSynonym: whooping cough (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Disease | Ague, angina pectoris, appendicitis; Asiatic cholera, spasmodic cholera; biliary calculus, kidney stone, black death, bubonic plague, pneumonic plague; blennorrhagia, blennorrhoea; blood poisoning, bloodstroke, bloody flux, brash; breakbone fever, dengue fever, malarial fever, Q-fever; heart attack, cardiac arrest, cardiomyopathy; hardening of the arteries, arteriosclerosis, atherosclerosis; bronchocele, canker rash, cardialgia, carditis, endocarditis; cholera, asphyxia; chlorosis, chorea, cynanche, dartre; enanthem, enanthema; erysipelas; exanthem, exanthema; gallstone, goiter, gonorrhea, green sickness; grip, grippe, influenza, flu; hay fever, heartburn, heaves, rupture, hernia, hemorrhoids, piles, herpes, itch, king's evil, lockjaw; measles, mumps, polio; necrosis, pertussis, phthisis, pneumonia, psora, pyaemia, pyrosis, quinsy, rachitis, ringworm, rubeola, St. Vitus's dance, scabies, scarlatina, scarlet fever, scrofula, seasickness, struma, syntexis, tetanus, tetter, tonsillitis, tonsilitis, tracheocele, trachoma, trismus, varicella, varicosis, variola, water qualm, whooping cough; yellow fever, yellow jack. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Pertussis |
| English words defined with "pertussis": DPT vaccine. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "pertussis": Autocrine Motility Factor ♦ Bordetella pertussis ♦ Diphtheria-Tetanus Vaccine, Diphtheria-Tetanus-acellular Pertussis Vaccines, Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis Vaccine, DPT immunisation, DPT immunization ♦ pertussis toxin, Pertussis Toxins. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Pertussis" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. Dutch (pertussis), German (pertussis). |
| Domain | Title |
References | |
Books |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Pertussis is an endemic illness. (references) | |
CDC. Pertussis surveillance report. (references) | ||
Bordetella pertussis, a gram-negative coccobacillus. (references) | ||
Business | The Department of Health (DOH) is the largest end-user of biotechnology products, primarily of vaccines used to vaccinate the population against diseases such as diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, tuberculosis, poliomyelitis, measles, hepatitis B, and Japanese encephalitis. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Pertussis" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 95.24% of the time. "Pertussis" is used about 21 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 95.24% | 20 | 78,262 |
| Noun (proper) | 4.76% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 21 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "pertussis": Bordetella pertussis ♦ Diphtheria-Tetanus-acellular Pertussis Vaccines ♦ pertussis toxin ♦ Pertussis Toxins ♦ Pertussis Vaccine. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "pertussis": Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis. | |
Containing "pertussis": Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis Vaccine. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
pertussis | 80 |
bordetella pertussis | 17 |
disease pertussis | 7 |
pertussis vaccine | 6 |
cough pertussis whooping | 3 |
acellular pertussis | 3 |
pertussis treatment | 3 |
pertussis toxin | 3 |
acellular diphtheria pertussis tetanus | 3 |
pcr pertussis toxin | 3 |
pertussis picture | 2 |
bordatella pertussis | 2 |
pertussis symptom | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "pertussis"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | коклюш (hooping cough), пертусис. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | tussis convulsiva, kighoste (paroxysmal cough, whooping cough, whooping-cough). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | pertussis (whooping-cough). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | DT Coq, diphtérie,tétanos,coqueluche, coqueluche. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | Pertussis (whooping-cough). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | κοκκύτης (whooping-cough), κοκκίτησ. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | pertosse (whooping cough). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | ertussispay pertosse, tosse convulsa (whooping cough, whooping-cough), coqueluche (chin-cough, faddiness, whooping cough). (various references) tuse convulsivã (whoop, whooping cough). (various references) коклюш (hooping cough, hooping-cough, whooping cough, whooping-cough). (various references) pertussis (whooping-cough), tos ferina (croup, whooping cough), coqueluche (whooping-cough). (various references) kikhosta (whooping cough, whooping-cough, whoppingcough). (various references) boğmaca öksürüğü (hooping cough, whooping cough). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "pertussis": pertussises. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "pertussis" (pronounced pertu"si's) |
| 3 | -s i' s | asbestosis, basis, Cassis, electrophoresis, emphasis, endometriosis, lexis, lysis, oasis, osmosis, osteoporosis, paralysis, parenthesis, praxis, Pyxis, sepsis, Telesis. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "e-i-p-r-s-s-s-t-u" | |
-1 letter: persists, pursiest, pussiest, suspires. | |
-2 letters: esprits, issuers, persist, pissers, priests, prisses, purists, pussier, pussies, resists, risuses, russets, sisters, situses, spriest, sprites, stirpes, stripes, suiters, suspire, tissues, trusses, tussers, uprises, upstirs. | |
-3 letters: erupts, esprit, estrus, issuer, issues, pisser, pisses, pistes, prests, priest, prises, purest, purist, purses, pusses, resist, ripest, russet, sepsis, setups, sieurs, sirups. | |
| Words containing the letters "e-i-p-r-s-s-s-t-u" | |
+2 letters: pasteurises, pertussises, suretyships. | |
+3 letters: superegoists, superscripts, superstrikes, superstrings, supremacists, suprematisms, suprematists, trusteeships. | |
+4 letters: percussionist, perfusionists, reassumptions, spiritualness, superstations, superstitions, superstitious, suppositories, uprightnesses. | |
+5 letters: disruptiveness, percussionists, propitiousness, protrusiveness, scrupulosities, sesquiterpenes, sprightfulness, superlobbyists, superloyalists, superministers, superpositions, supersensitive, supervirtuosos, supportiveness, treasurerships. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)50 65 72 74 75 73 73 69 73 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references).--. . .-. - ..- ... ... .. ... |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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| Amazon.com BOOKS: Search for: "pertussis" |
