kuru
nounUK /ˈkʊ.ɹuː/ · AU /ˈkʉː.ɹʉː/
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”).
1
A chronic, progressive, fatal central nervous system disease found mainly among the Fore and neighboring peoples of New Guinea, caused by a prion that probably resembles the scrapie agent of sheep, transmissible to nonhuman primates, and believed to be transmitted by ritual cannibalism.
- By the late 1950s, kuru was the leading cause of death among Fore women, and it had killed so many that men outnumbered women by three to one.1999, Matt Ridley, Genome, Harper Perennial, published 2004, page 273: