catarrh /kə-TAR/. noun. An inflammation of the nose or throat; the mucus formed from such an inflammation. From Greek katarrhein (to flow down), from kata- (down) + rhein (to flow). See also catarrhal, catarrhous, and the partially derived catarrhine, used to describe the narrow space between the nostrils of some primates, from kata- + rhinos (nose).
“Don’t fall into the water,” the Siren warned. “It’s a catalyst that will give you catarrh, catatonia, and catalepsy.” (Piers Anthony)
A few hotel ghosts wander stiffly, wondering if catarrh
can ever be cathartic, and if there’s any afterlife, and if so,
whether it’s near as the next room, or the closet even
(John Ashbery)
“He sort of catarrh-mumbles his ditties in a disgruntled mushmouth sorta like Robbie Robertson on Quaaludes with Dylan barfing down the back of his neck.” (Lester Bangs)
“Darwin’s doctors diagnosed a variety of illnesses, among them ‘dyspepsia with an aggravated character’, ‘catarrhal dyspepsia’, and ‘suppressed gout’. Today, discussion in clinical journals concludes that what he may actually have been suffering from was panic disorder.” (Daniel Freeman & Jason Freeman)
“Dylan once announced: ‘I refute your criticism from the bottom of my catarrh.’” (Hilly Janes)
“…people resistant to balding have the same nucleic acid in their skin tissue as catarrhine monkeys, which are also immune to balding.” (Stanislaw Lem)
“Saturn is like dead bone in the ear—double mastoid for the soul. Saturn is like a roll of wallpaper wrong side out and smeared with that catarrhal paste which wallpaperers find so indispensable in their metier.” (Henry Miller)
“…she had the Lowlander’s broad, bony forehead and high cheekbones (cf. Dürer’s dauntless drawing of his mother, 1514), and her voice even had a faint, catarrhal catch on certain tricky consonants.” (John Banville)
“…he offers his hand jabwise; i.e., thrusting it oddly forward with the thumb turned out, and introduces himself in a catarrhally confidential little bass: Dobrolyubov.” (Vladimir Nabokov)
“…when he did manage to find something funny, he ran it into the ground, repeating the punch line over and over and snickering in a bottomless catarrhal wheeze that made you think he was choking on his own phlegm.” (T. C. Boyle)
Then from their poverty they rose,
From dry catarrhs, and to guitars
They flitted
Through the palace walls.
(Wallace Stevens)