n.
Any of several forms of infectious disease caused by rickettsia, especially those transmitted by fleas, lice, or mites, and characterized generally by severe headache, sustained high fever, depression, delirium, and the eruption of red rashes on the skin. Also called prison fever, ship fever, Also called typhus fever.
[New Latin tȳphus, from Greek tūphos, stupor arising from a fever, vapor, from tūphein, to smoke.]
typhous ty'phous (-fəs) adj.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.