lurgy
Meanings
Plural: lurgies
Noun
- A fictitious, highly infectious disease; sometimes as a reference to flu-like symptoms.
- Any uncategorised disease with symptoms similar to a cold or flu that renders one unable to work.
Origin / Etymology
A nonsense word popularized by Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes, scriptwriters for a 9 November 1954 programme of The Goon Show, “Lurgi Strikes Britain”, about the outbreak of a highly dangerous, highly infectious and—as it turns out—highly fictitious disease known as “the Dreaded Lurgi”.
Folk etymologies include:
* a corruption and contraction of allergy. This is not supported by the use of the hard /ɡ/ in lurgi (rhyming with Fergie), as allergy has a soft 'g' /dʒ/.
* based on the Northern English dialectal phrase fever-lurgy (“lazy or idle”).
Scrabble Score: 9
lurgy is not valid in Scrabble (US) TWL Dictionarylurgy is not valid in Scrabble (MW) Merriam-Webster Dictionary
lurgy is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary
Words With Friends Score: 11
lurgy is a valid Words With Friends word