quartan

noun /ˈkwɔːtən/

1. A fever whose symptoms recur every four days.

   historical

   an Egyptian at Alexandria, whose quartan resisted the strongest applications of European physic, was effectually healed by the actual cautery, which a certain Arab Shaykh applied to the crown of his head.

Where it comes from

From Anglo-Norman quartaine, Old French quartaine, from Latin quartāna (short for febris quartana), noun use of feminine form of quartānus (“recurring every four days”), from quartus (“fourth”).

Adapted from the Wiktionary entry quartan (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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