Noun: morbs
Sample Sentences
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For in veracity these Times denote
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Morbs to the Sane, and Obits to th' Ægrote;
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And alterate the suavest Pulchritude
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To the Complection of its native Mud. [1653, Francis Rabelais [i.e., François Rabelais], translated by [Thomas Urquhart, Peter Anthony Motteux], “An Epistle by Pantagruel’s Lymosin, Grand Excoriator of the Latiale Tongue, mention’d Book ii. Chap. 6.”, in The Works of Francis Rabelais, Doctor in Physick: Containing Five Books of the Lives, Heroick Deeds, and Sayings of Gargantua, and His Sonne Pantagruel. […], London: […] [Thomas Ratcliffe and Edward Mottershead] for Richard Baddeley, […], →OCLC; republished in volume II, London: […] Navarre Society […], [1948], →OCLC, page 438:]
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[…] and what herbes or plants soever were preservative against the Scotoma, Oedema, Lithiasis, Paralysis, Celphalgia, Lycanthropia; all diseases, Ulcers, Morbs or Contagions wheresoever or howsoever arising […] [a. 1673, Blasius Multibibus (Richard Brathwait), The Smoaking Age or The Life and Death of Tobacco, page 103:]
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As a whole, New York audiences are the most responsive because they are made up largely of the happy, care-free transients, the human beings who come to New York to laugh. […] They are not wise as the morbs are, they are just happy, and natural and alive. [1919, Bert Williams, quotee, “Keeping up with the new laughs”, in Theatre Magazine, page 346:]
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For whatever reasons, an astonishing assortment of English idioms (some dating to Elizabethan times) existed in the nineteenth century to literally give sorrow words: one spoke of the “blackdogs”, the “blue devils”, the “dismals”, the “dumps”, the “hyps”, the “mopes”, the “morbs”, the “mulligrubs”, the “mumps”, the “wiffle-woffles”, the “woefuls”, the “worrits”, and the “vapors”. [[1973, Stefan Grossman, Country Blues Songbook, page 16:]
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‘Oh Tess,’ giggled Kate, ‘you’re always such a tonic. I’m so glad you’ve come. I’ve got a severe case of the “morbs”.’ [1995, Patricia Harding, A Woman of Africa, page 159:]
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Maybe i’m not up to dick today. I think I’ll just absquatulate before I get the morbs. Goodbye old chum. [2017 November 23, Anna W., “Caption this! Thanksgiving 2017”, in Recollections:]
Nouns inflected like morbs
greyware,
chronotropy,
urgrund,
cytosorting,
homekeeping,
pedobaiting,
winterdress,
JLNS,
rumpology,
hopkinsiaxanthin,
enchylemma,
further education,
hexobendine,
humdrumminess,
unobligingness,
backscroll,
telocinobufagin,
dosulepin,
mensuralism,
crème de framboise, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
Perhaps from morbid, ultimately from Latin morbus (“malady (of body or mind), distress”). See: Latin Nouns '
morbus'.