The etymology of the term "Black Death" is not clear. Though it's quite old—its first known use is in Swedish records from 1555—the term is not well-attested until the eighteenth century. Rather than deriving from the appearance of black splotches on the skin, it seems more likely that it's a translation of the Latin pestis atra or mors atra ("black plague" or "black death"), where "black" has the sense of "dreadful" or "terrible." One should note that the French call it morte bleue, "blue death."

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