Meanings
- alternativeuncountableAlternative form of chicken pox.
Chickenpox parties, at which children gather so they can all be infected by a child who has the pox, are often held by parents who distrust chickenpox vaccine or want their children to have the stronger immunity that surviving a full-blown infection affords.
2009 July 5, The New York Times, page A121 more example
Not a rite-of-passage rash-and-fever, not a week eating ice cream on the sofa, this was not chickenpox but a biblical plague the month before he turned two, his skinny frame covered entire with pennysized bulbs sagging, fat with neon green pus, as though he had been mummified in bubble wrap, victim of the world's bees, skin around the pustules souffléd with red welts, coat of monstrous nipples.
2014, Carolyn Jess-Cooke, Boom!
Synonyms & antonyms
nounan acute contagious disease caused by herpes varicella zoster virus; causes a rash of vesicles on the face and body
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with chickenpox
Cite this entry
chickenpox. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/chickenpox
“chickenpox.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/chickenpox. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “chickenpox,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/chickenpox.
Source: chickenpox on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.