- cholera
- late 14c., "choler, bile, melancholy," from L. cholera, from Gk. kholera "a type of disease characterized by diarrhea, supposedly caused by choler" (Celsus), from khole "gall, bile," from khloazein "to be green," from khloros (see Chloe). But another sense of khole was "drainpipe, gutter." Revived 1565 as a name for a severe digestive disorder (rarely fatal to adults); and 1704 (especially as cholera morbus), for a highly lethal disease endemic in India, periodically breaking out in global epidemics.