sunstroke
nounUS /ˈsʌnˌstɹoʊk/
Etymology From sun + stroke.
1
Medicine, Sciences Heat stroke caused by an excessive exposure to the sun's rays.
- But, however this may be, the grounds upon which I base my belief that "chill" in the one case, and "heat" in the other, is the most common exciting cause of these maladies, respectively, are furnished by the fact that malarious fevers are found to prevail with a periodicity corresponding with that of the annual seasons of greatest change in the weather elements, namely, the spring and autumn, and moreover, with a periodicity corresponding, at least in the Punjab, for which province the statistics have been tabulated, with the triennial cycles of rainfall -- a peculiarity in which they coincide with cholera -- whilst sun-fever or sunstroke is found to prevail with a periodicity corresponding with the season of highest temperature.1885, Henry Walter Bellew, The History of Cholera in India from 1862 to 1881, page 815:
- Idiopathic non-septic periencephalitis may be produced by profound grief, protracted anxiety, especially when accompanied by great overwork, partial starvation combined with the gnawing anxiety of deep poverty, and also, it is affirmed, by sunstroke.1896, Horatio C. Wood, The Practice of Medicine, page 513:
1 more example
- Later came midsummer, with the stifling heat, when the dingy killing beds of Durham’s became a very purgatory; one time, in a single day, three men fell dead from sunstroke.1904, Upton Sinclair, chapter 10, in The Jungle:
- Related terms
- sunburn, sun poisoning, sunblock, sunhat, sunscreen, sun umbrella