1800, literally "resembling typhus," from typhus + suffix from Greek -oeides "like," from eidos "form, shape" (see -oid). The noun is from 1861, a shortened form of typhoid fever (1845), so called because it was originally thought to be a variety of typhus. Typhoid Mary (1909) was Mary Mallon (d.1938), a typhoid carrier who worked as a cook and became notorious after it was learned she had unwittingly infected hundreds in U.S.
typhoid ty·phoid (tī'foid')
n.
Typhoid fever. adj. ty·phoi·dal (tī-foid'l)
Of, relating to, or resembling typhoid fever.
typhoid fever n.
An acute infectious disease caused by Salmonella typhi and characterized by a continued fever, physical and mental depression, an eruption of rose-colored spots on the chest and abdomen, tympanites, and diarrhea. Also called enteric fever.
An acute and highly contagious disease transmitted by food or water contaminated with a kind of bacterium. The disease, which is often fatal, is characterized by high fever, pain in the abdomen, and bleeding in the intestines.