Pox (?), n. [For pocks, OE. pokkes. See Pock. It is plural in form but is used as a singular.] (Med.) Strictly, a disease by pustules or eruptions of any kind, but chiefly or wholly restricted to three or four diseases, — the smallpox, the chicken pox, and the vaccine and the venereal diseases.
☞ Pox, when used without an epithet, as in imprecations, formerly signified smallpox; but it now signifies syphilis.