Word.ws English Dictionary

murraine

murraine is the obsolete form of murrain.

Meaning of murrain

Noun

murrain (countable and uncountable, plural murrains)

  1. (archaic, uncountable) Infectious disease; pestilence, plague; (countable) sometimes used in curses such as a murrain on someone: an outbreak of such a disease; a plague.
    • How a murryen came this chaunce, (ſay Tib) vnto our dame?c. 1553 (date written), “S.” [pseudonym; attributed to William Stevenson], […] Gammer Gurtons Nedle: […], London: […] Thomas Colwell, published 1575, →OCLC, Act I, scene iii, signature A.iii., verso
  2. (archaic, countable, figuratively) A widespread affliction, calamity, or destructive influx, especially when seen as divine retribution; a plague.
    • Usura [a personification of usury] is a murrain, usura / blunteth the needle in the maid’s hand / and stoppeth the spinner’s cunning.1937, Ezra Pound, “Canto XLV”, in The Fifth Decad of Cantos, London: Faber and Faber, →OCLC; republished in A Selection of Poems, London: Faber and Faber […], November 1940, →OCLC, page 80
  3. (countable, historical) Any of several highly infectious diseases of cattle or other livestock, such as anthrax, babesiosis, or rinderpest; or a particular epizootic thereof; also, an infectious disease affecting other animals, such as poultry.
    • water murrain
  4. (broadly, countable) An infectious disease affecting plants.
    • potato murrain
  5. (countable, obsolete) A poor-quality green-salted animal hide.
    • Green salted are those that have been salted and are thoroughly cured. […] In green-salted hides and skins, those weighing […] 14 to 25 pounds, if plump, kip, but if thin and poor are called runners or murrains, and are sold at two thirds the price of good kip; […][1877, Edward H[enry] Knight, “Leath′er”, in Knight’s American Mechanical Dictionary. […], volume II, New York, N.Y.: Hurd and Houghton […], →OCLC, page 1275, column 1
  6. (obsolete, uncountable) Death, especially from an infectious disease.
    • Moreyn dethe mortalité […] mourine […]1530 July 28 (Gregorian calendar), Iohan Palsgraue [i.e., John Palsgrave], “The Table of Substantyues”, in Lesclarcissement de la langue francoyse⸝ […], [London]: […] [Richard Pynson] fynnysshed by...

See all 10 meanings of murrain

Forms of murraine

pluralmurraines

Questions about murraine

What is murraine the obsolete form of?
Murraine is the obsolete form of murrain.

Words near murraine in the dictionary

  1. Murrabit
  2. Murrabit West
  3. Murrah
  4. Murrahs
  5. murrain
  6. murraine
  7. murrained
  8. murraines
  9. murrains
  10. murram
  11. Murrami

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: murraine (page history and authors); murrain (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “murraine.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/murraine. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.