[f. FEVER sb. + LURDEN (imitating medical names of fevers). Said to survive dial. as fever-lurgan, -lurgy, -largie.] The disease of laziness.
c. 1508. Colyn Blowbol’s Testament, 75, in Hazl., E. P. P., I. 93.
| I trow he was infecte certeyn | |
| With the faitour, or the fever lordeyn. |
1547. Boorde, Brev. Health, cli. (1557), 55. I had almoste forgotten the feuer lurden, with the whiche manye … yonge persons bee sore infected nowe a dayes.
1636. Heylin, Sabbath, II. 149. They have a feaver-lurdane, and they cannot stirre.
1808. Jamieson, Fever-largie, expl. ‘Two stomachs to eat, and none to work’; county unknown.
