Have you ever heard someone say they're coming down with the epizootic? It meant they had some illness that could be a cold or flu but they didn't know, and epizootic was a funny word to say. All these years later, I found out that epizootic, which I've always heard pronounced with a "zoo" in the middle, is a real word that is pronounced epizo-otic. It refers to an epidemic among animals.
The slang use of the word probably dates back to 1872, when an equine influenza spread rapidly among cities in the eastern US and millions of horses suffered. This was a disaster because everything was transported by horse power, from travelers to milk to firefighters. The lack of working horses brought New York, Chicago, Boston, and other cities to a near-standstill. While only about 1% of affected horses died from the disease, many more died from being worked while sick or from pneumonia that develops after the infection clears. Learn more about the epizootic of 1872 at Jstor Daily. -via Strange Company
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My mother used that word for non specific illnesses. I thought she had made it up until a few years ago when I learned that it was real.
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