nettle-rash

plural nettle-rashes

1. countableuncountablemedicineItchy, swollen, red areas of the skin which can appear quickly in response to an allergen or due to other conditions.

   Poor kids. Only troubles wildfire and nettlerash.

   1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 15: Circe]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 495

   3 more examples

   They and their relatives ate peanuts till they were covered in nettle-rash.

   1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter XI, in Capricornia, New York: D. Appleton-Century, published 1943, page 187

   His skin was covered with little bumps as though from a nettle rash. I looked for the tick he had flung away. It was black and swollen from old blood and it seemed clear that this infected blood had got into the wound and caused acute blood poisoning.

   1958, Henno Martin, translated by Edward Fitzgerald, The Sheltering Desert, Thomas Nelson & Sons, page 99

   His colour is changing now, he does not have to look in the mirror, it's like a nettle-rash rising, scalding, scalding.

   1997, Edna O'Brien, Down by the River, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, page 242

   Synonyms: hives, urticaria