1. Pathology. a malarial fever characterized by regularly returning paroxysms, marked by successive cold, hot, and sweating fits.
2. a fit of fever or shivering or shaking chills, accompanied by malaise, pains in the bones and joints, etc.; chill.
1250-1300; Middle English < Middle French, short for fievre ague acute fever < Latin febris acūta
(http://www.dictionary.com/browse/ague?s=t)
"He shivered all the while so violently, that it was quite as much as he could do to keep the neck of the bottle between his teeth, without biting it off.
"'I think you have got the ague,' said I."
- Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
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