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yellow fever

yellow fever noun: an acute febrile illness of tropical regions, caused by a flavivirus (Yellow fever virus) and spread by certain mosquitoes, characterised by jaundice, black vomit and the absence of urination.

Noun

yellow fever (uncountable)

  1. An acute febrile illness of tropical regions, caused by a flavivirus (Yellow fever virus) and spread by certain mosquitoes, characterised by jaundice, black vomit and the absence of urination.
    • The town up the road was overcome by yellow fever, he said. All travelers warned away.2016, Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad, Fleet (2017), page 257
  2. (figuratively, slang) An attraction to ethnically East Asian men or women, expressed by non-East Asian (especially white European male or white American) people.
    • Your girl want me, we both know / Cause she got yellow fever2015, “In This B*tch”, in WORLDWIDE, performed by Jay Park
    Synonyms:
    Asian fever
  3. (dated, figuratively) A lust for gold; an obsession with seeking gold ore.
    • He's got the yellow fever; Once get the sight of gold and you are poisoned.1910, Giacomo Puccini, La Fanciulla Del West: The Girl of the Golden West
    • An onze a day, two a day, or three—every one has the gold or yellow fever. Last night several of the most respectible American residents of this town arrived home from a visit to the gold regions.1951, George Peter Hammond, The Larkin Papers, Univ of California Press
    Synonyms:
    gold fever

yellow fever meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Arabic and Malay

yellow fever in Tamil

மஞ்சள் காய்ச்சல், மஞ்சட்காய்ச்சல், மஞ்சள் நோய்

yellow fever in Urdu

پیلا بخار

yellow fever in Arabic

illness
حَمَّى صَفْرَاء ḥammā ṣafrāʔ

yellow fever in Malay

illness
demam kuning
More languagesFewer languages
yellow fever in Indonesian
demam kuning
yellow fever in Thai
ไข้เหลือง kâi-lʉ̌ʉang
yellow fever in Vietnamese
sốt vàng, sốt vàng da

Synonyms of yellow fever

All synonyms of yellow fever

Words formed from yellow fever

Questions about yellow fever

What does yellow fever mean?
Yellow fever means an acute febrile illness of tropical regions, caused by a flavivirus (Yellow fever virus) and spread by certain mosquitoes, characterised by jaundice, black vomit and the absence of urination.
What is yellow fever in Tamil?
Yellow fever in Tamil is மஞ்சள் காய்ச்சல், மஞ்சட்காய்ச்சல், மஞ்சள் நோய். See Yellow fever meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is yellow fever?
Yellow fever is a noun.

Words near yellow fever in the dictionary

  1. yellow elder
  2. yellow elders
  3. yellow false indigo
  4. yellow false indigos
  5. yellow fat disease
  6. yellow fever
  7. yellow fever mosquito
  8. yellow fever mosquitoes
  9. yellow fever mosquitos
  10. yellow flag
  11. yellow flags

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: yellow fever (page history and authors); yellow fever (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); yellow fever (Urdu 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-yellow fever.ogg.

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