rheum

noun

1. (uncountable)Thin or watery discharge of mucus or serum, especially from the eyes or nose, formerly thought to cause disease.

   “You that did voide your rume vpon my beard, / And foote me as you ſpurne a ſtranger curre / Ouer your threſhold, […]”

   “[T]thronging theaters of people (as well Aliens as Engliſhmen) hiued thither about the ſelling of fiſh and Herring, from Saint Michael to Saint Martin, and there built ſutlers booths and tabernacles, to canopie their heads in from the rhewme of the heauens, or the clouds diſſoluing Cataracts.”

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

2. (countable, uncountable)Illness or disease thought to be caused by such secretions; a catarrh, a cold; rheumatism.

   “And not as ſome yeeres ſince, I ſaw a Deane of S. Hillarie of Poictiers, reduced by reaſon and the incommoditie of his melancholy to ſuch a continuall ſolitarineſſe, that when I entered into his chamber he had never remooved one ſteppe out of it in twoo and twenty yeares before: yet had all his faculties free and eaſie, onely a rheume excepted that fell into his ſtomake.”

3. (countable, poetic, uncountable)Tears.

   “Rich. And ſay, what ſtore of parting tears were ſhed? / Aum. Faith none for me: except the Northeaſt wind / Which then grew bitterly againſt our face, / Awak’d the ſleepie rhewme, and ſo by chance / Did grace our hollow parting with a teare.”

4. (abbreviation, alt-of, clipping, informal)Clipping of rheumatologist.

   “[…] the other rheumatologist in the practice I saw after that first meeting was irritated because my history was completely wrong. Not [irritated] at me, [but] the other rheum. […] I had to switch rheums at one point due to insurance problems. […] Thank god my good rheum’s office sorted out the insurance.”