Word.ws English Dictionary

pellagra

/pɪˈlaɡɹə/

pellagra noun: a disease characterised by skin lesions and mental confusion, primarily caused by a niacin deficiency.

pellagra: A ripe ear of corn with dry husks on a stalk in a field
Photo by Wolfgang Weiser on Unsplash

Noun

pellagra (countable and uncountable, plural pellagras)

  1. A disease characterised by skin lesions and mental confusion, primarily caused by a niacin deficiency.
    • In 1755 the French physician Gaspar Casal (1680–1759) published an account of pellagra, then a new disease in Spain.1997, Roy Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, Folio Society, published 2016, page 531
    • Mixing the alkali into the recipe in the right way chemically releases the otherwise unavailable niacin in the corn, which stops pellagra in its tracks, and allowed corn-based agricultural populations to grow and spread.2016, Joseph Henrich, chapter 7, in The Secret of Our Success […] , Princeton: Princeton University Press, →ISBN

pellagra meaning in Tamil and Malayalam

pellagra in Tamil

மூளைக்கோளாறு உண்டாக்கும் தோல் நோய், கறுப்பு நாக்கு நோய், நிகோடினிக் அமிலப் பற்றாக்குறை நோய், பெலாகிறா, தோற்பிசிர், தோல் வறட்சி

pellagra in Malayalam

ഒരുതരം ക്ഷയരോഗം

Forms of pellagra

pluralpellagras

Origin of pellagra

From Italian pellagra, from Latin pellis (“skin”) + Ancient Greek ἄγρα (ágra, “seizure, attack, catching”).

Words formed from pellagra

Questions about pellagra

What does pellagra mean?
Pellagra means a disease characterised by skin lesions and mental confusion, primarily caused by a niacin deficiency.
What is pellagra in Tamil?
Pellagra in Tamil is மூளைக்கோளாறு உண்டாக்கும் தோல் நோய், கறுப்பு நாக்கு நோய், நிகோடினிக் அமிலப் பற்றாக்குறை நோய். See Pellagra meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is pellagra?
Pellagra is a noun.
How do you pronounce pellagra?
Pellagra is pronounced /pɪˈlaɡɹə/ (UK).
What is the plural of pellagra?
The plural of pellagra is pellagras.

Words near pellagra in the dictionary

  1. pell-mell
  2. Pella
  3. pellack
  4. pellacks
  5. pellage
  6. pellagra
  7. pellagragenic
  8. pellagras
  9. pellagric
  10. pellagrin
  11. pellagrins

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pellagra (page history and authors); pellagra (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); pellagra (Malayalam Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-pellagra.wav.

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