Link Centre Dictionary

petechia

pe·tec·hia

UK/pɪˈtiːkɪə/ uncommon

noun

1.

a minute red or purple spot on the surface of the skin as the result of tiny hemorrhages of blood vessels in the skin (as in typhoid fever)

Origin

Learned borrowing from New Latin petechia, from Italian petecchie (“skin eruptions”, plural), probably from a popular Latin diminutive of petigo (“scab, eruption”) (from impetīgo).

Related words

Broader terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.