Forms: 6 cattar, cattarue, catarh, catterhe, Sc. caterr, catter, 6–7 catar, catarre, catarrhe, 7 catarr, cathar, catharre, cather, 7– catarrh. [a. F. catarrhe, in 15th c. caterre, 16th c. catarre (= Pr. catar, Sp., It. catarro), ad. L. catarrh-us, ad. Gr. κατάρρους running down, rheum, f. καταρρεῖν to flow down.]
† 1. The profuse discharge from nose and eyes that generally accompanies a cold, and that was formerly supposed to run down from the brain; a ‘running at the nose.’ Obs.
[1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., VII. iv. (1495), 224. Dissoluynge and shedynge thumours of the heed highte Catarrus.]
1533. Elyot, Cast. Helth (1541), 33 b. Egges be good ageinst Catars, or stilling out of the hed into the stomake. Ibid., 69 b. Catarres or reumes.
1536. Bellenden, Cron., 46 a (Jam.). In the nixt winter Julius Frontynus fell in gret infirmite be imoderat flux of catter.
1586. T. B., La Primaud. Fr. Acad., II. (1594), 364. Sodainely choked by catarrhes, which like to floods of waters, runne downewards.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 272. The catar or rhume, which, in a horse, is called the glaunders.
1656. in Blount, Glossogr.
1794–6. E. Darwin, Zoon. (1801), I. 425. When the secretion of these capillary glands is increased, it is termed simple catarrh.
† 2. Formerly also applied to: Cerebral effusion or hæmorrhage; apoplexy. Obs.
1552. Lyndesay, Monarche, 5117. Sumar dissoluit suddantlye Be Cattarue or be Poplesye.
1579. Fenton, Guicciard., III. (1599), 142. King Charles dyed of a catterhe which the Phisitians call apoplexie.
1708. Kersey, Catarrh of the Spinal Marrow, a Falling-out of the Marrow of the Backbone.
1721–1800. in Bailey.
3. Inflammation of a mucous membrane; usually restricted to that of the nose, throat, and bronchial tubes, causing increased flow of mucus, and often attended with sneezing, cough and fever; constituting a common ‘cold.’
Often with qualifying word, as alcoholic, bronchial, chronic, gastric, uterine catarrh; epidemic catarrh, influenza; summer catarrh, hay-asthma.
1588. R. Parke, trans. Mendoza’s Hist. China, 132. A generall sicknesse … called the Cattarre or murre.
1675. Gascoigne, in Rigaud, Corr. Sci. Men (1841), I. 221. The great epidemical catarrh, which hath ranged through so many countries.
1771. Smollett, Humph. Cl. (1815), 107. Rheumatisms, catarrhs, and consumptions, are caught in these nocturnal pastimes.
1782. E. Gray, in Med. Commun., I. 47. At Venice … the common name of the disease, Russian catarrh [influenza].
1797. M. Baillie, Morb. Anat. (1807), 117. The Symptoms which attend catarrh are too generally known to require being mentioned.
1818. Moore, Fudge Fam. Paris, vi. 171. Your cold, of course, is a catarrh.
1831. Youatt, Horse, xii. (1847), 258. Various names … influenza, distemper, catarrhal fever, and epidemic catarrh.
1868. Dickens, Lett. (1880), II. 338. So oppressed am I with this American catarrh, as they call it.
