noun · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Pronunciation
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
General-American:/ˈdɛŋ.ɡi/
General-American:/ˈdɛŋ.ɡeɪ/
UK:/ˈdɛŋ.ɡi/
Southern-England:Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
South-Asia:/ˈɖɛŋ.ɡu/
South-Asia:/-ɡi/
/ˈɖɛŋɡ.ɯ/Tanglish, also
Philippines:/ˈd̪ɛŋ.ɡɛ/
rhymes with -ɛŋɡi
rhymes with (General American) -ɛŋɡeɪ
CMU ARPABET:D EH1 N G
Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.
1
noun
Meaning 1
An acute febrile disease of the (sub)tropics caused by the Dengue virus, a flavivirus, transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes, and characterized by high fever, rash, headache, and severe muscle and joint pain.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: uncountable, usually
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
2
noun
Meaning 2
an infectious disease of the tropics transmitted by mosquitoes and characterized by rash and aching head and joints
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
From West Indian Spanish dengue in 1828, from the Kiswahili term dinga (in full kidingapopo or kidinga pepo, "a kind of sudden cramp-like seizure caused by an evil spirit", dinga itself meaning sudden cramp-like seizure). The borrowed term changed to dengue in Spanish due to this word existing in Spanish with the meaning "fastidiousness" and the folk etymology referring to the dislike of movement by affected patients of chikungunya which was also reffered to as dengue until the first half of the 20th century.
Across languages
Translations
32 source translations are retained for this English entry.