cold sore

English

Etymology

Compound of cold +‎ sore, probably for the tendency of the vesicles to recur along with other illness, or possibly during cold weather, though this explanation is less common.[1] Compare synonym fever blister.

Pronunciation

Noun

cold sore (plural cold sores)

  1. (pathology) A small bump (namely a vesicle) on the lips resulting from infection by herpes simplex viruses (mostly HHV1 but also HHV2).

Synonyms

Translations

References

  1. ^ “cold sore, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December, 2012.

Anagrams

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.