Dēn'gue, n.

(dĕng'gā), n. (Med.) A peculiar sort of fugitive and erratic epidemic rheumatism.

☞ This disease, when it first appeared in the British West India islands, was called the dandy fever, from the stiffness and constraint which it gave to the limbs and body. The Spaniards of the neighboring islands mistook the term for their word dengue, denoting prudery, which might also well express stiffness, and hence the term dengue became, at last, the name of the disease. Tully.