a contagious usu sexually transmitted and often congenital disease caused by a spirochaetal bacterium: compare primary syphilis, secondary syphilis, tertiary syphilis
syphilitic /-ʹlitik/ adj and noun
[scientific Latin, named after Syphilus, hero of the poem Syphilis sive Morbus Gallicus (Syphilis or the French disease) by Girolamo Fracastoro d.1553, Italian physician and poet]