ergotism
noun
ergotism is a noun meaning “The plant disease caused by ergot” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled E-R-G-O-T-I-S-M and has 4 syllables, and it appears about once in every 47 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of ergotism is ergotisms.
What does ergotism mean?
noun
- 1
The plant disease caused by ergot.
- 2
The effect of long-term ergot poisoning, traditionally due to the ingestion of the alkaloids produced by the fungus Claviceps purpurea which infects rye and other cereals, and more recently by the action of a number of ergoline-based drugs, consisting of convulsive and gangrenous symptoms.
- 3
The use of ergot-infested grain to poison animals.
- 4
A logical deduction.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce ergotism?
Ergotism has 4 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of ergotism
- ergotisms plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is ergotism?
Ergotism appears about once in every 47 million words in written English, the 211,986th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Where does ergotism come from?
From ergot + -ism.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).