[For the earlier ‘stroke of the sun,’ transl. F. coup de soleil. Cf. G. sonnenstich.] Collapse or prostration, with or without fever, caused by exposure to excessive heat of the sun.
Also loosely extended to similar effects of heat from other sources, as electric sunstroke: see quot. 1890.
[1807. J. Johnson, Oriental Voy., 14. Several of the people got sick, with … what are called ‘Coups de Soleil,’ or strokes of the Sun.
1823. Gentl. Mag., XCIII. II. 647/2. He instantly expressed a feeling of having received what is called ‘a stroke of the sun.’]
1851. G. W. Curtis, Nile Notes, xxxvii. 188. Warding off sun-strokes with huge heavy umbrellas of two thicknesses of blue cotton.
1865. Dickens, Lett. to E. Yates, 30 Sept. I got a slight sunstroke last Thursday.
1875. H. C. Wood, Therap. (1879), 653. The terrible mortality of sunstroke.
1890. Gould, New Med. Dict., Sunstroke, Electric, an illogical term for the symptoms, somewhat similar to those of heat-stroke, produced by too close and unprotected proximity to the intense light emitted in welding metals by electricity.
