Calenture was a fever formerly believed to affect sailors in the tropics, causing them to hallucinate and leap into the sea, seeing it as a green field. The word originates from Spanish and Latin.
Calenture war ein Fieber, das angeblich Seeleute in den Tropen befiel und dazu brachte, das Meer als grünes Feld zu sehen und hineinzuspringen. Das Wort stammt aus dem Spanischen und Lateinischen.
| Front | calenture \KAL-un-chur\ |
|---|---|
| Back | noun A fever formerly supposed to affect sailors in the tropics. [In addition to being plagued by scurvy and homesickness, sailors of yore who dared the tropics also had calenture to worry about. Given a case of this fever they were likely to imagine that the sea was actually a green field and to leap into it. Our earliest evidence of the word in English is from the late 16th century. Such potent imagery destined the word for figurative use also, as in the Adam Bede quote above. "Calenture" has its origins in a Spanish word of the same meaning, "calentura," which itself traces to Latin "calere," meaning "to be warm." Other words from "calere" include "calorie," "cauldron," and "scald."] "I always associate [the restaurant chain] Little Chef with rollicking rides along provincial arterial roads, the kind of interminable drives during which one begins to appreciate the delusion known as calenture. Sailors, in the days before steam and out of sight of land for months, would sometimes begin to hallucinate and, seeing the waves as green fields, try and walk off across them." |
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