chi·kun·gun·ya (ch??ko?on-go?on?y?)n. An acute infectious disease caused by a mosquito-borne virus, characterized by fever, rash, and joint pain, and seen primarily in Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. Also called chicken guinea disease.[Makonde (Bantu language of the region of Tanzania where an epidemic in the 1950s led to the first medical description of the disease) : chi-, sing. n. pref. + -kungunyala, to become contorted, fold up (so called because joint pain causes sufferers from the disease to assume a hunched posture).]American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.