A variant spelling of aposteme or apostume; an abscess or suppurating swelling in older medical texts.
From Greek apostema, but altered through Middle English phonetic shifting and spelling variation. The -ume ending represents how English adapted Greek medical terms during the medieval period.
The spelling 'aposthume' versus 'aposteme' versus 'apostume' actually marks the changing pronunciation of English—by comparing these spelling variants in different manuscripts, linguists can trace how -eme and -ume sounds diverged in Middle English.
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