murrain

American  

[mur-in] / ˈmɜr ɪn /

noun

1. Veterinary Pathology. any of various diseases of cattle, as anthrax, foot-and-mouth disease, and Texas fever.

2. Obsolete. a plague or pestilence.

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murrain British  

/ ˈmʌrɪn /

noun

1. any plaguelike disease in cattle

2. a plague

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Etymology

Origin of murrain

1300–50; Middle English moreine, moryne < Middle French morine a plague, equivalent to mor ( ir ) to die (≪ Latin morī ) + -ine -ine ²

Example Sentences

Once again last week, as it had every year since 1911, Sweden's Taxeringskalender was proving a boon to the boastful, a murrain to the miserly and a surefire smash in the bookstalls.

From Time Magazine Archive

The corn is blighted, the cows give no milk, the murrain blights the stock, children have the rickets, and everything goes wrong.

From The Coming of the King by Hocking, James

Mr. King only published two sermons, one preached to his own people on the murrain among the cattle, and another delivered at the ordination of Mr. Joshua Symonds, at Bedford, 1767.

From Memorials of the Independent Churches in Northamptonshire with biographical notices of their pastors, and some account of the puritan ministers who laboured in the county. by Coleman, Thomas

But in the end all these cows died, not, it is believed, of the cattle murrain, but of exhaustion occasioned by the activity of the drugs administered to them.

From On the cattle plague: or, Contagious typhus in horned cattle. Its history, origin, description, and treatment by Bourguignon, Honor?

Five hides belonging to animals which had died of murrain were tanned and used for collars and other cart gear on the farm; but all the rest were sold, thirty-six of them in all.

From Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 by Power, Eileen