smallpox Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun a highly contagious viral disease characterized by fever and weakness and skin eruption with pustules that form scabs that slough off leaving scars
    variola; variola major.

WordNet

Small"pox` noun
Etymology
Small + pox, pocks.
Definitions
  1. (Med.) A contagious, constitutional, febrile disease characterized by a peculiar eruption; variola. The cutaneous eruption is at first a collection of papules which become vesicles (first flat, subsequently umbilicated) and then pustules, and finally thick crusts which slough after a certain time, often leaving a pit, or scar. now no longer observed, after a long campaing of vaccination apparently succeeded in eliminating all human carriers by 1995.

Webster 1913