Meaning of yellow fever | Babel Free

Definitions

1. An acute febrile illness of tropical regions, caused by a flavivirus (Yellow fever virus) and spread by certain mosquitoes, characterised by jaundice, black vomit and the absence of urination.
   uncountable
2. An attraction to ethnically East Asian men or women, expressed by non-East Asian (especially white European male or white American) people.
   figuratively, slang, uncountable
3. A lust for gold; an obsession with seeking gold ore.
   dated, figuratively, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“The town up the road was overcome by yellow fever, he said. All travelers warned away.”

“Your girl want me, we both know / Cause she got yellow fever”

“He's got the yellow fever; Once get the sight of gold and you are poisoned.”

“An onze a day, two a day, or three—every one has the gold or yellow fever. Last night several of the most respectible American residents of this town arrived home from a visit to the gold regions.”

“But the true yellow fever that has abounded in the lower gold-bearing valleys around Guanay can possibly illustrate in sickness what takes place in actuality among the sons of men who are seduced by the lust for gold.”

“In the stories he wrote and published about the gold rush, Dickens does not resolve characters' feelings of class resentment so much as explain them in non-political terms […] Dickens spreads this strain of 'yellow fever' among his characters, making their labour unrest seem both understandable and pathological.”

CEFR level