From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishpoliopo‧li‧o /ˈpəʊliəʊ $ ˈpoʊlioʊ/ (also poliomyelitis /ˌpəʊliəʊmaɪəˈlaɪtɪs $ ˌpoʊlioʊ-/ technical) noun [uncountable] MIa serious infectious disease of the nerves in the spine, that often results in someone being permanently unable to move particular muscles
Examples from the Corpus
polio• By the close of 1955 polio began to decline.• Do they think it could be polio?• The following year he contracted polio.• For polio patients, however, something more than inactivity was involved in the loss of calcium.• If there was any pain, polio was suspected.• He maintained this gift even after he had been disabled by the recurrence of teenage polio.• The implicit threat of disease curtailed summer pleasures for the children of the polio years.• With the vaccine approved and becoming more widely available, the unvaccinated continued to come down with polio.Origin polio (1800-1900) Modern Latin poliomyelitis, from Greek polios “gray” + myelos “bone marrow” 