plague spot

English

Noun

plague spot (plural plague spots)

1. (medicine) A spot on the skin that is characteristic of the plague or of a similar disease.

   Synonym: God's token

   • 1881, Edward Newenham Hoare, The Brave Men of Eyam, Or, A Tale of the Great Plague Year, page 193:

     But no plague-spot appeared, and when Steb woke up in the afternoon and demanded something to eat, it was pretty evicent that he was merely suffering from a feverish cold.

   • 2011, Ole Benedictow, What Disease was Plague?, page 286:

     The first victim died 6 September after three days of illness when he developed swellings in the groin and neck and the fatal token, the plague spot.

2. A location where plague is active.
   • 2005, J. F. D. Shrewsbury, A History of Bubonic Plague in the British Isles, page 98:

     He notes that South Elmham deanery 'appears to have been a plague spot', but regrettably he supplies no reason for its unenviable condition.

   • 2016, Ruifu Yang, Andrey Anisimov, Yersinia pestis: Retrospective and Perspective, page 111:

     However, with the growth of young animals, the gerbils visit neighboring burrows and the plague spot therefore expands.

3. (figuratively) A location that is a plague or scourge; a place of corruption and degeneracy.
   • 1899, The Butterfly - Volumes 1-2:

     Suffice it that all that is most worthless in Europe may be seen gathered round the gaming-tables at Monte Carlo. The artist who did these drawings has been there. Well, I thank Heaven we have no such plague-spot in this fair England of ours.

   • 1937, Robert Theodore Gunther, Early science in Oxford, page 135:

     He turned the worst plague spot in Oxford, with its plague pit where lay 'filth, rotten corpses, and intestines of corpses', the dump of the refuse of the town, 'where thieves and malefactors used to lie in wait for opportunities of thieving, homicide, and other intolerable evils', into a splendid home for classical learning in which good Churchmen were to be trained.

   • 1956, John D. Bright, Kansas: The First Century - Volume 2, page 440:

     He is the human hyena and moral leper who runs the scurrilous, venal, unspeakable rag around on Fifth Avenue, a creature whose base, degraded nature has made him a portable plague spot wherever he goes.

Further reading

• “plague spot”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “plague spot”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “plague spot” in TheFreeDictionary.com, Huntingdon Valley, Pa.: Farlex, Inc., 2003–2024.