pox:

Or: the pox : Historically, a term for a variety of pustular and venereal illnesses, particularly syphilis . Pox take you! / Pox on't! Are Shakespearean curses wishing syphilis on someone. See syphilis for synonyms.

QUOTE: Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon) cursing Maggie DuBois (Natalie Wood) in The Great Race (1965): ' The pox on you! ' Does he mean the pox or small pox?

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