To affect with or cause a rheum (watery discharge from eyes or nose).
From en- (prefix meaning 'to cause to be') + rheum (from Greek rheuma, meaning 'flow' or 'discharge'). The word combines a causative prefix with a medical condition term.
This word shows how English borrowed medical terminology directly from Greek, and the 'en-' prefix helped doctors turn nouns into verbs—a pattern that's still used in modern medicine to create action words from conditions.
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