noun, feminine/kɔ.klyʃ/plural: coqueluches
whooping cough; influenza; craze, bug (something that "sweeps the nation"); idol, star, darling; coqueluche hood
From earlier coqueluchon (“a kind of monk's cowl or hood”), from Italian coccolucio, from Latin cucullus (“hood”). Sufferers of the 1510 influenza pandemic would wear a hood resembling the coqueluchon. The spelling and/or "whooping cough" sense may have been influenced by coq (“rooster”), from the cough evoking a rooster's crow.