Also 6 lepresie, 6–7 leprosie, 7 leaprosie, leprousie. [? ad. med.L. *leprōsia (Du Cange has leprosia leper-house), f. leprōsus LEPROUS. Cf. It. lebbrosia.]
1. A loathsome disease (Elephantiasis Græcorum), which slowly eats away the body, and forms shining white scales on the skin; common in mediaeval Europe.
In the Eng. Bible it renders the Heb. çārásath, Gr. λέπρα, which seem to have been used as comprehensive terms for various skin diseases.
1535. Coverdale, Lev. xiii. 3. Then is it surely a leprosy [1382 Wyclif a plaage of lepre].
1563. Mirr. Mag., Buckingham, ci. Thy deare doughter stroken with leprosye.
1597. Morley, Introd. Mus., 163. Like vnto a hereditarie lepresie in a mans bodie is vncurable without the dissolution of the whole.
1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage (1614), 216. They say it procureth the Leprosie in the children which are then gotten.
1673. Ray, Journ. Low C., 71. These Waters dry up and heal … Leprosie and other Affections of the Skin.
1798. Coleridge, Anc. Mar., III. xi. Her skin was white as leprosy.
1801. Colebrooke, Jrnl., in Life (1873), 176. Last month, a young man … was going to be buried alive, on account of the leprosy. Ibid., 177. When one of the family dies of a leprosy.
1863. Baring-Gould, Iceland, 176. The people suffer severely from scorbutic attacks and leprosy.
b. fig.
1598. Rowlands, Betraying of Christ, 14. My leprosie is a defiled soule.
a. 1623. W. Pemble, Wks. (1635), 9. The tongues, the pens, the practises of not a few discover unto us this leprosie of Atheisticall contempt of God’s wisdome arising in their foreheads.
1651. Hobbes, Leviath., III. xli. 265. Such men as are cleansed of the Leprousie of Sin by Faith.
1751. J. Brown, Shaftesb. Charac., 237. What this leprosy of false knowledge may end in, I am unwilling to say.
1781. Cowper, Expost., 96. When nations are to perish in their sins, ’Tis in the church the leprosy begins.
1836. Hor. Smith, Tin Trump. (1876), 202. Idleness is a moral leprosy, which soon eats its way into the heart.
† c. A similar disease in horses. Obs.
1580. Blundevil, Order Curing Horses Dis., iii. 2. The cankred mangenesse, most commonlie called of the old writers the Leprosie. Ibid., cliv. 65 b. The Leprosie or vniuersall manginesse, called of the old writers Elephantia.
d. attrib. and Comb.
1648–60. Hexham, Dutch Dict., de Kleppe van een Lazarus, the Clicket which a Leprosie man beggs with.
1705. Lond. Gaz., No. 4106/4. His Cordial Antidote for eradicating all … Leprosie Humours out of the Blood.
1897. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., II. 62. The leprosy bacillus is by no means evenly distributed throughout the body. Ibid., 69. Instances of transmission in leprosy-free countries.
2. A leper-house. rare–1.
1834. L. Ritchie, Wand. by Seine, 89. A malady for which a few centuries ago there were more than twenty thousand lazarettos in Europe. In the fourteenth century, in the domains of the Seigneur de Courcy alone, there were ten of these leprosies.
