blackleg
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 1.69 in modern English
17
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A fatal cattle disease caused by the soil-borne bacterium Clostridium chauvoei; symptomatic anthrax.
Uncountable
noun
A disease of potato crops caused by pectolytic bacteria, characterized by blackening and decay of the lower stem portion.
Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "“Soon afther, some mischances begun to happen to the farmer's cattle; a horse tuk the staggers, a fine vale calf died o' the black-lig, an' some uv his sheep o' the rid wather[.]”"
- "[H]ere, then, was a community of good taste and kind feeling, no sharpers, no black-legs, no wolves in sheep's clothing."
- "[Y]our friend Bloundell-Bloundell is a professional blackleg, and travels the Continent, where he picks up young gentlemen of fashion and fleeces them."
- "They have no regard for respectability like yours — nothing between a baron and a blackleg."
- "I had never defrauded a man of a farthing, nor called him knave behind his back. But now the last rag that covered my nakedness had been torn from me. I was branded a blackleg, card-sharper, and murderer."
- "In the autumn there was a row at some cement works about the unskilled labour men. A union had just been started for them and all but a few joined. One of these blacklegs was laid for by a picket and knocked out of time."