What does "psittacosis" mean?

An infection by Chlamydia bacteria, caught from infected birds, and characterised by fever, pneumonia and headaches.

What is a synonym for "psittacosis"?

Common synonyms include: ornithosis, parrot disease, parrot fever, ague, anthrax, black death.

Pronounced //ˌsitəˈkoʊsɪs//.

//ˌsitəˈkoʊsɪs// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Noun

1
An infection by Chlamydia bacteria, caught from infected birds, and characterised by fever, pneumonia and headaches. countable, uncountable
2
an atypical pneumonia caused by a rickettsia microorganism and transmitted to humans from infected birds wordnet
3
infectious disease of birds wordnet

From Latin psittacus (“parrot”) + -osis. By surface analysis, psittac- + -osis.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.