Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
Pustule \Pus"tule\ (?; 135), n. [L. pustula, and pusula: cf. F.
pustule.] (Med.)
A vesicle or an elevation of the cuticle with an inflamed
base, containing pus.
{Malignant pustule}. See under {Malignant}.
Malignant \Ma*lig"nant\, a. [L. malignans, -antis, p. pr. of
malignare, malignari, to do or make maliciously. See
{Malign}, and cf. {Benignant}.]
1. Disposed to do harm, inflict suffering, or cause distress;
actuated by extreme malevolence or enmity; virulently
inimical; bent on evil; malicious.
A malignant and a turbaned Turk. --Shak.
2. Characterized or caused by evil intentions; pernicious.
``Malignant care.'' --Macaulay.
Some malignant power upon my life. --Shak.
Something deleterious and malignant as his touch.
--Hawthorne.
3. (Med.) Tending to produce death; threatening a fatal
issue; virulent; as, malignant diphtheria.
{Malignant pustule} (Med.), a very contagious disease,
transmitted to man from animals, characterized by the
formation, at the point of reception of the virus, of a
vesicle or pustule which first enlarges and then breaks
down into an unhealthy ulcer. It is marked by profound
exhaustion and usually fatal. Called also {charbon}, and
sometimes, improperly, {anthrax}.
Source : WordNet®
malignant pustule
n : a form of anthrax infection that begins as papule that
becomes a vesicle and breaks with a discharge of toxins;
symptoms of septicemia are severe with vomiting and high
fever and profuse sweating; the infection is often fatal
[syn: {cutaneous anthrax}]