Origin: Formed within English, by compounding; modelled on a Danish lexical item. Etymons: black adj., death n.
Etymology: < black adj. + death n., probably with reference to the black plague pustules visible on the victims' skin, probably originally after Danish den sorte død (a1603).
The epithet ‘black’ is apparently not attested in early (14th- or 15th-cent.) sources in any European language with reference specifically to the epidemics of 1347 and later. (Post-classical Latin atra mors is found earlier (c1200) referring to plague or other pestilence, probably with reference to the fatal prognosis, but it is unclear whether such use shows any connection with the later specific use; compare classical Latin mors ātra , used of death in general.)
The specific use first occurs in Swedish and Danish chronicles of the 16th and early 17th centuries; compare Swedish †swarta dödhen (16th cent., with suffixed definite article; now svarta död ), Danish den sorte død (a1603). The Danish term was probably calqued into other European languages; compare e.g. Icelandic svarti dauði (17th cent.), German der schwarze Tod (1743 or earlier), French la mort noire (1763 in the passage translated in quot. 1770, or earlier).
In earlier texts the epidemic is called the pestilence , the plague , great pestilence , great death , or (in order to distinguish the epidemic of 1347–50 from later visitations) the furste moreyn (see murrain n.) or the first pestilence . Post-classical Latin chroniclers used pestis pest n. pestilentia pestilence n., epidemia epidemy n., mortālitās mortality n. In many European languages the usual term was a noun phrase meaning ‘the great death’ or ‘the great mortality’; compare post-classical Latin magna mortalitas (c1440 in a British source), Middle Low German de grōte dōt, dat grōte stervent, early modern German das große sterbote (1362), das große erste sterben (a1420), Danish den store død, †den store mandøøth, (with suffixed definite article) Old Swedish store dödhin (1402; Swedish stordöden), Old Norwegian manndauði hinn mikli (14th cent.; compare Old Icelandic plagan mikli ‘the great plague‘), Italian grande mortalità (a1388).
1755 A. Berthelson tr. E. Pontoppidan Nat. Hist. Norway i. i. 24 Norway, indeed, cannot be said to be entirely exempt from pestilential distempers, for the Black-death [Dan. sorte Død], known all over Europe by its terrible ravages, from the years 1348 to 50, was felt here as in other parts.
1770 T. Percy tr. P. H. Mallet Northern Antiq. I. xi. 275 This colony in Greenland subsisted till about the year 1348, which was the æra of a dreadful pestilence, known by the name of the Black Death [Fr. mort noire], that made terrible devastation in the North.
1784 Ld. Monboddo Antient Metaphysics III. ii. vi. 189 A disease of this kind, mentioned by the northern historians, and called by them the black death, which almost desolated Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Russia, in the end of the fifteenth century, is said to have weakened the race of men so much in those countries, that the people have never since been of the size and strength they were formerly.
1794 J. P. Andrews Hist. Great Brit. I. 371 The pestilence (called ‘The Black Death’) reaches Scotland in 1348.
1823 ‘Mrs. Markham’ Hist. Eng. (1827) I. xviii. 249 Edward's successes in France were suspended for the next six years by a most terrible pestilence; so terrible as to be called the black death.
1833 B. G. Babington (title) The Black Death in the fourteenth century. From the German of J. F. E. Hecker, M.D.
1853 Lancet 17 Dec. 587/2 The author adduced strong evidence as to the identity of the Indian plague with the Black Death of the fourteenth century.
1907 Victoria Hist. County Derby II. 351/2 After the Black Death labour became scarce, and both ‘coliers’ and ‘grovers’ took advantage of the circumstance to demand and take higher wages.
1934 J. A. Thomson & E. J. Holmyard Biol. for Everyman II. 1376 For many years the black rat was a serious pest in Britain, as in Europe generally,..because it harboured the microbe of the plague (or Black Death).
1977 National Geographic July 77 (caption) Three Xenopsylla fleas, a genus known to harbor the Black Death bacillus, are magnified at the Vertebrate Pest Control Centre.
2008 N.Y. Times (National ed.) 27 July (Week in Review section) 11/2 Europe is projected to suffer a population loss in the 21st century that will rival the impact of the Black Death.
1755—2008(Hide quotations)
1867 Lancet 6 July 23/1 So rapid had been the course of the malady, so fatal the results, that the people in the neighbourhood designated it ‘black death’.
1917 Contemp. Rev. May 639 Once the spirit of combativeness is aroused in the Irish soldiers, they hate the enemy like the black death to which they strive to consign them.
1970 N. Bawden Birds on Trees ii. 31 Perhaps when you were young, you needed to live on the edge of something—war, the dole, the Black Death?
1975 M. H. Wolf I'll take Back Road 78 Chickens carry a disease called Black Leg which is Black Death to turkeys.
2002 C. Newland Snakeskin viii. 100 We are opposed to the disease called multiculturalism, the Black Death spreading through our land, believing Britain for the British, Africa for the Africans.
1867—2002(Hide quotations)