venereal disease

noun

: a contagious disease (such as gonorrhea or syphilis) that is typically acquired in sexual intercourse compare std

Examples of venereal disease in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web The board’s charge was to evaluate individuals for military service, a process that required testing for venereal diseases and mandatory treatment for those affected. Caitjan Gainty, Smithsonian Magazine, 12 Jan. 2024 Donald Ellis Wildmon was born on Jan. 18, 1938, in Dumas, Miss., the youngest of the five children of Ellis Wildmon, a venereal disease investigator for the state health department, and Bernice T. Wildmon, a schoolteacher. Trip Gabriel, New York Times, 4 Jan. 2024 Once the great explorer, Columbus was now just an agent of venereal disease. Jeremy Adelman, Foreign Affairs, 1 May 2012 And what little medicine was on hand — typically mercury and arsenic — was more apt to kill than cure those afflicted with venereal disease. Mark Eddington, The Salt Lake Tribune, 17 July 2023 In a survey last year, some Black respondents cited knowledge of the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study - a secret experiment conducted by the U.S. government from 1932 until 1972 to study the deadly venereal disease without treatment - as influencing their opinions about the coronavirus vaccines. Bryan Pietsch and Adela Suliman, Anchorage Daily News, 14 Sep. 2021 In this fashion, Guibert reinvigorates the French tradition of writing about the psychosexual realities of venereal disease (think of Charles Baudelaire and Gustave Flaubert, whose literary lives were shaped by incurable syphilis) for a contemporary audience facing a contemporary virus. Andrew Durbin, The New York Review of Books, 12 June 2020 A Little Life has no historical or sociological anchoring, no interest in the structures that perpetuate clerical predation or stigmatize queerness and venereal disease, no heft to it all. Vulture, 21 Oct. 2022 These colorful posters do some very limited Point-A-to-Point-B reasoning in attributing the transmission of venereal disease strictly to women and assuming that soldiers are innocent victims. Rebecca Kreston, Discover Magazine, 9 Dec. 2011

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'venereal disease.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

1658, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of venereal disease was in 1658

Dictionary Entries Near venereal disease

Cite this Entry

“Venereal disease.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/venereal%20disease. Accessed 29 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

venereal disease

noun
: a contagious disease (as gonorrhea or syphilis) that is usually acquired through sexual intercourse with someone who already has it

Medical Definition

venereal disease

noun
: a contagious disease (as gonorrhea or syphilis) that is typically acquired in sexual intercourse
abbreviation VD
compare sexually transmitted disease

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