rheum means Thin or watery discharge of mucus or serum, especially from the eyes or nose, formerly thought to cause disease. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 79 out of 100.
Why this word is great
RHEUM — [Noun] A thin, watery discharge of mucus, as from the eyes or nose, especially during sleep, or an illness historically attributed to such a discharge. From Middle English reume, from Anglo-Norman reume, from Late Latin rheuma, from Ancient Greek ῥεῦμα (rheûma, 'stream, flow, humour'). Unlike 'mucus'—a thicker, viscous secretion—or 'catarrh'—the inflammatory condition itself—rheum is the specific, quiet effluent of a body at rest. It is the gritty crust that glues a sleeper’s lashes at dawn, the cold, clear bead trembling at a nostril’s rim, or the salt-tracked evidence of grief on a fevered cheek—the body’s humblest proof of its own perpetual, unglamorous flow back toward the formless.
noun
- Thin or watery discharge of mucus or serum, especially from the eyes or nose, formerly thought to cause disease.“You that did voide your rume vpon my beard, / And foote me as you ſpurne a ſtranger curre / Ouer your threſhold, […]”
- Illness or disease thought to be caused by such secretions; a catarrh, a cold; rheumatism.“And not as ſome yeeres ſince, I ſaw a Deane of S. Hillarie of Poictiers, reduced by reaſon and the incommoditie of his melancholy to ſuch a continuall ſolitarineſſe, that when I entered into his chamber he had never remooved one ſteppe out of it in twoo and twenty yeares before: yet had all his faculties free and eaſie, onely a rheume excepted that fell into his ſtomake.”
- Tears.“Rich. And ſay, what ſtore of parting tears were ſhed? / Aum. Faith none for me: except the Northeaſt wind / Which then grew bitterly againſt our face, / Awak’d the ſleepie rhewme, and ſo by chance / Did grace our hollow parting with a teare.”