lep·er

(lĕp′ər)

1. A person affected by leprosy.

2. A person who is avoided by others; a pariah.

[Middle English, from lepre, leprosy, from Old French, from Late Latin lepra, from Greek lepros, scaly, from lepis, scale.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

leper

(ˈlɛpə)

1. (Pathology) a person who has leprosy

2. derogatory a person who is ignored or despised

[C14: via Late Latin from Greek lepra, noun use of lepros scaly, from lepein to peel]

Usage: Rather than talking about a leper or lepers, it is better to talk about a person with leprosy and people with leprosy

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

lep•er

(ˈlɛp ər)

n.

1. a person who has leprosy.

2. a person rejected or ostracized for unacceptable behavior, opinions, character, or the like; outcast.

[1350–1400; Middle English lepre leprosy < Latin lepra < Greek lépra, n. use of feminine of leprós scaly, akin to lépos scale, lépein to peel]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun	1.	leper - a person afflicted with leprosy lazar diseased person, sick person, sufferer - a person suffering from an illness
	2.	leper - a pariah who is avoided by others castaway, outcast, pariah, Ishmael - a person who is rejected (from society or home)

leper

noun outcast, reject, untouchable, pariah, lazar (archaic) The article branded her a social leper.

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

Translations

شَخْص أبْرَص

-ámalomocný

spedalsk

Aussätzige

henkilöhyljeksiäspitaalinen

lépreux

מצרע

leprás

holdsveikur maîur

lebbroso lebbra

raupsairaupsuotasis

lepras slimnieks, spitālīgais

spedalsk

trędowaty

прокажённый

malomocný

cüzzamlı kimse

麻风病患者

leper

[ˈlepəʳ]

A. N → leproso/a m/f (also fig)

B. CPD leper colony N → leprosería f, colonia f de leprosos

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

leper

[ˈlɛpə^r] n → lépreux/euse m/fleper colony n → léproserie f

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

leper

n → Leprakranke(r) mf, → Lepröse(r) mf (spec), → Aussätzige(r) mf (old, fig)

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

leper

[ˈlɛpəʳ] n → lebbroso/a

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

leper

(ˈlepə) noun

a person who has leprosy.

ˈleprosy (-rəsi) noun

a contagious skin disease, causing serious and permanent damage to the body, including loss of fingers, nose etc.

lep·er

a. leproso-a, lazarino-a; que sufre de lepra.

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

This king was a leper, and all his doctors had been unable to cure him, when a very clever physician came to his court.

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"When you look at yourself in the glass you see the typical appearance of the leper."

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Next, he saw the girl in the leper refuge and remembered it was for love of him that she had let him go.

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"He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper." Strangely enough, the house they point out to you now as his, has been turned into a leper hospital, and the inmates expose their horrid deformities and hold up their hands and beg for bucksheesh when a stranger enters.

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"And yet they will all feel warranted in making a wide space between me and them, as if I were a leper! My practice and my reputation are utterly damned-- I can see that.

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In the busy street, in the crowded room, in the grind of work, in the whirl of pleasure, amid the many or amid the few--wherever men congregate together, wherever the music of human speech is heard and human thought is flashed from human eyes, there, shunned and solitary, the shy man, like a leper, stands apart.

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He remembered how for months, trusting in what they told him, he had implored God to heal him as He had healed the Leper and made the Blind to see.

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Pierre was received as if he were a corpse or a leper. The eldest princess paused in her reading and silently stared at him with frightened eyes; the second assumed precisely the same expression; while the youngest, the one with the mole, who was of a cheerful and lively disposition, bent over her frame to hide a smile probably evoked by the amusing scene she foresaw.

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While Stella read My Graves, punctuating its tragic paragraphs with chuckles, and Rusty slept the sleep of a just cat who has been out all night curled up on a Jane Andrews tale of a beautiful maiden of fifteen who went to nurse in a leper colony -- of course dying of the loathsome disease finally -- Anne glanced over the other manuscripts and recalled the old days at Avonlea school when the members of the Story Club, sitting under the spruce trees or down among the ferns by the brook, had written them.

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"And what do you imagine," asked the other, "would be worse than a leper?"

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"For by it you are rendered infamous, and driven, like lepers of old, out of society; at least, from the society of all but wicked and reprobate persons; for no others will associate with you.

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When the train came into the station, Anna got out into the crowd of passengers, and moving apart from them as if they were lepers, she stood on the platform, trying to think what she had come here for, and what she meant to do.

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