influenza

noun

Etymology: Borrowed from Italian influenza (“influence”), from Latin influentia. Doublet of influence.

1. An acute contagious disease of the upper airways and lungs, caused by a virus, which rapidly spreads around the world in seasonal epidemics.

   “In early 1919 the Board also issued a film, Dr Wise on Influenza, in which a character called 'Brown' spreads the disease by enacting poor behaviours. This did address transport - by boarding a crowded omnibus, "Brown may be scattering germs throughout the carriage and giving influenza to a number of people".”

   “Israel has recorded the first case of a rare mixture of two diseases, influenza and coronavirus, dubbed “flurona”.”