noun
slows
slaz
noun
1
An old folk name for milk sickness, an illness once common in frontier communities caused by drinking milk from cows that had eaten poisonous white snakeroot.
"Pioneer diaries sometimes describe entire families struck down by the slows after a bad batch of milk."
How to Use Slows
Learner’s notesIn plain EnglishA historical, regional term for milk sickness rather than a word you would use today.
When to use it
Archaic and rarely used outside of historical writing about 19th-century America.
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Fill the Gap
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Pioneer diaries sometimes describe entire families struck down by the _____ after a bad batch of milk.