■ noun a mosquito-borne intermittent and remittent fever endemic to warmer regions and caused by a protozoan parasite (genus Plasmodium ).
Derivatives
~l adjective
~n adjective
malarious adjective
Origin
C18: from Ital., from mal'aria , contracted form of mala aria 'bad air' (orig. denoting the unwholesome exhalations of marshes, to which the disease was formerly attributed).