Vol. 09 · Loanwords ·italian ·1740s
Malaria
from mal'aria
- Meaning
- Bad air — the pre-germ-theory belief that the disease came from foul marsh air.
- Source word
- mal'aria
- Route into English
- Italian → English by 1740s; the etymology preserved a wrong theory of disease causation. Ronald Ross identified mosquitoes as the vector in 1897.
- Arrived
- 1740s
English borrows.
Browse the full loanword atlas or explore another source language.