Typhoid Mary
Typhoid Mary noun: a person who carries and spreads a dangerous disease, especially one who refuses to cooperate to minimize the risk of infection.
Noun
Typhoid Mary (plural Typhoid Marys)
- A person who carries and spreads a dangerous disease, especially one who refuses to cooperate to minimize the risk of infection.
- “[…] Do you know what our great fear has been? That either the grayboys or the Ripley would find a Typhoid Mary, someone who could carry it and spread it without catching it him- or herself.”2001, Stephen King, Dreamcatcher, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 356
- As far as I can tell, Montezuma must have been some sort of Typhoid Mary. Even today, visitors to Mexico speak of catching a terrible affliction known as “Montezuma’s revenge,” which apparently causes violent, unrelenting bowel movements.2005, Annabelle du Fouet, “The murky world from whence it all came” (chapter 2), in Weather Balloons Make Rotten Sex Toys, Ellora's Cave, →ISBN, page 47
Forms of Typhoid Mary
| plural | Typhoid Marys |
|---|
Origin of Typhoid Mary
Based on Mary Mallon (1869–1938), a notorious asymptomatic carrier of typhoid who refused to cooperate with the authorities about her condition until they resorted to forcible confinement.
Questions about Typhoid Mary
- What does Typhoid Mary mean?
- Typhoid Mary means a person who carries and spreads a dangerous disease, especially one who refuses to cooperate to minimize the risk of infection.
- What part of speech is Typhoid Mary?
- Typhoid Mary is a noun.
- What is the plural of Typhoid Mary?
- The plural of Typhoid Mary is Typhoid Marys.
Words near Typhoid Mary in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Typhoid Mary (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: “Typhoid Mary.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/typhoid_mary. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.