variola
noun
variola is a noun meaning “Smallpox (Orthopoxvirus variola)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled V-A-R-I-O-L-A, and it appears about once in every 13 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of variola is variolas.
What does variola mean?
noun
- 1
Smallpox (Orthopoxvirus variola).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce variola?
- US
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Sapaa-variola.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of variola
- variolas plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is variola?
Variola appears about once in every 13 million words in written English, the 106,501st 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).
Variola in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense smallpox:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does variola come from?
From Middle English variolas pl (“pustules, pocks”), from Medieval Latin or Medical Latin variola (“infectious disease causing pustules; pox”), from Latin varius. Doublet of variole.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).