m 3 a 1 l 1 a 1 r 1 i 1 a 1
7 letters · 9 points in Scrabble
Meaning
noun an infective disease caused by sporozoan parasites that are transmitted through the bite of an infected Anopheles mosquito; marked by paroxysms of chills and fever
originBorrowed from Italian malaria, formed from mal- (“bad”) and aria (“air”). Introduced into English by the Scottish geologist John MacCulloch (1773–1835). Displaced native Old English unlyft (literally “bad air”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0