The story
Via Spanish, a corruption of Swahili ki denga pepo, meaning "cramp-like seizure caused by an evil spirit".
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
dengue fever
Today it means: An acute febrile and sometimes hemorrhagic disease endemic to the tropics, caused by varieties of the species Dengue virus, and primarily transmitted to humans from mosquitoes, though human-to-human transmission is also well documented. Full definition →