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murrain

Archaic Terms
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A plague or pestilence affecting livestock, especially cattle; any contagious or fatal disease among animals; also used as a curse or exclamation of plague upon something.

Detailed Definition
“Murrain” appears in biblical contexts as divine punishment. In poetry, it symbolizes agricultural or moral blight. The term’s harshness mirrors devastation. Poets use it to critique neglect or invoke wrath, where livestock plague reflects human sin, reinforcing themes of providence, ecology, and communal suffering in didactic and historical verse.
Example
Example in poetry:
“The murrain struck the herd, and all died,” in a pastoral elegy; In biblical allusion (Exodus): “The murrain upon thy cattle”—used in prophetic poetry; “No murrain of spirit shall touch the just”; “The murrain of war spared neither man nor beast”; “Fear not murrain, but the rot within”; The shepherd mourned his flock lost to murrain.
Additional Notes
“Murrain” blends agricultural disaster with divine curse; in biblical or plague poetry, it symbolizes God’s wrath on livestock (Exodus), extending to any widespread calamity as moral retribution.
Also Known As
plague pestilence disease
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