rheum

From Anglo-Norman reume, from Late Latin rheuma, from Ancient Greek ῥεῦμα (rheûma, “stream, humour”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ɹuːm/
• Rhymes: -uːm

rheum (countable and uncountable, plural rheums)

1. (uncountable) Watery or thin discharge of serum or mucus, especially from the eyes or nose, formerly thought to cause disease. [from 14th c.]
   • 1599, Thomas Nashe, Nashes Lenten Stuffe:

     and there built ſutlers booths and tabernacles, to canopie their heads in from the rhewme of the heauens, or the clouds diſſoluing Cataracts.

   • 1916, James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Macmillan Press Ltd, 102

     He wore about his shoulders a heavy cloak; his pale face was drawn and his voice broken with rheum.

2. Illness or disease thought to be caused by such secretions; a cold, catarrh; rheumatism. [from 14th c.]
   • 1603, John Florio, transl.; Michel de Montaigne, chapter 8, in The Essayes, […], book II, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:

     he […] had all his faculties free and easie, onely a rheume excepted that fell into his stomacke.

3. (poetic) Tears. [from 16th c.]

• (dried rheum around eyes): crusty (slang), gound (UK dialectal), sleep, sleepy dust (informal)

• rheumatic
• rheumatism
• rheumy