English Explanatory Dictionary

Kuru disease

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A rare, fatal prion disease of the Fore people of Papua New Guinea, causing progressive neurological decline and historically transmitted through mortuary endocannibalism.

Word forms

Kuru disease

Etymology

From Fore kúru (literally “trembling, shivering”). Perhaps eventually from Proto-Gorokan *kút(V) (“dangling, shaking”) if cognate with the reduplicated element of Yagaria gúli gúli hu- (“be loose, rattle”).

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