lurgy

Meaning

Noun

• A fictitious, highly infectious disease; often used in the phrase "the dreaded lurgi", sometimes as a reference to flu-like symptoms
• Any uncategorised disease with symptoms similar to a cold or flu that renders one unable to work.

Origin

• A nonce word popularized by Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes, scriptwriters for a 9 November 1954 programme of The Goon Show, "Lurgi Strikes Britain", in which Ned Seagoon must deal with a national outbreak of a highly dangerous, highly infectious and — as it turns out — highly fictitious disease known as the Dreaded Lurgi.
• Folk etymologies for this word include:
• that it is a corruption and contraction of the term allergy. This is not supported by the use of the hard /ɡ/ in lurgi (rhyming with Fergie), as allergy has a soft 'g' /dʒ/.
• that it is based on the Northern English dialectal phrase fever-lurgy.