febrile

See also: fébrile

English

WOTD – 4 October 2006

Etymology

Borrowed from Medieval Latin febrīlis, from Latin febris (“fever”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfiːbɹaɪl/, IPA^(key): /ˈfɛbɹaɪl/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Adjective

febrile (comparative more febrile, superlative most febrile)

1. Feverish, or having a high temperature.
   • 1983, Isaac Asimov, chapter 22, in The Robots of Dawn, →ISBN, page 116:

     Aurora's orange sun (Baley scarcely noted the orange tinge now) was mildly warm on his back, lacking the febrile heat that Earth's sun had in summer (but, then, what was the climate and season on this portion of Aurora right now?).

2. (medicine) Involving fever as a symptom or cause.
3. Full of nervous energy.
   • 2011 October 23, Tom Fordyce, “2011 Rugby World Cup final: New Zealand 8-7 France”, in BBC Sport‎^[1]:

     An already febrile atmosphere within the ground before the start had been stoked still further when France's players formed an arrow formation to face down the haka, and then advanced slowly over halfway as the capacity crowd roared.

   • 2023 July 4, Marina Hyde, “Who’s for political Bazball with Rishi? Voters? Tories? Anyone?”, in The Guardian‎^[2]:

     Out in the ground, meanwhile, it was particularly disappointing to hear former England captain Andrew Strauss put the febrile atmosphere down to “people who don’t normally come to Lord’s”.

Synonyms

• (feverish): flushed, hot
• (full of energy): energetic, excited

Derived terms

• afebrile
• antefebrile
• antifebrile
• febrility
• intrafebrile
• nonfebrile
• postfebrile
• subfebrile
• subfebrile
• unfebrile

 

Translations

feverish

• Bulgarian: трескав (bg) (treskav)
• Catalan: febril
• Czech: horečnatý (cs)
• Danish: febersyg, febril (da)
• Dutch: koortsig (nl), koortsachtig (nl)
• Finnish: kuumeinen (fi), febriili
• French: fébrile (fr)
• German: febril (de), fieberig (de), fiebrig (de), fieberhaft (de), fiebernd (de), Fieber-
• Hungarian: lázas (hu)
• Ido: febrala (io), febratra (io), febroza (io)
• Japanese: 熱の（ある） (ねつの（ある）, netsu no (aru))
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: febril

  Nynorsk: febril

• Portuguese: febril (pt)
• Romanian: febril (ro)
• Spanish: febril (es)

involving fever as a symptom or cause

• Hungarian: lázas (hu)
• Spanish: afiebrado (es) m or f

full of nervous energy

• Catalan: febril
• Czech: horečnatý (cs)
• Danish: febril (da)
• Dutch: koortsachtig (nl)
• French: fébrile (fr)
• German: fieberig (de), fiebrig (de), fieberhaft (de), fiebernd (de)
• Hungarian: lázas (hu)
• Russian: лихора́дочный (ru) m pl (lixorádočnyj)
• Spanish: nervioso (es) m

Anagrams

• félibre

German

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

Adjective

febrile

1. inflection of febril:
   1. strong/mixed nominative/accusative feminine singular
   2. strong nominative/accusative plural
   3. weak nominative all-gender singular
   4. weak accusative feminine/neuter singular

Norwegian Bokmål

Adjective

febrile

1. definite singular and plural of febril

Norwegian Nynorsk

Adjective

febrile

1. definite singular and plural of febril