Home UK English falling sickness

Meaning of falling sickness in English:

falling sickness

noun

mass noun
archaic term for epilepsy
‘Because of this health department notice, TV stations will have to suspend medical treatment adverts for certain illnesses such as venereal diseases, psoriasis, falling sickness, and vertigo.’
  • ‘The Chinese translation of epilepsy is Dian, meaning falling sickness, and epileptic attack is Xian, meaning convulsion.’
  • ‘Epilepsy, ‘the falling sickness,’ was one of the most feared and least well understood problems in early New England, as it was throughout the world.’
  • ‘The powerful shall rise and the cowards would shrivel at the falling sickness.’
  • ‘A Sumerian term referring to descriptions of seizures has been translated as ‘The Falling Sickness’.’