Definition of "lazar"

lazar

/ˈleɪzə/

noun
plural lazars
1. (archaic) Synonym of leper: a person suffering from Hansen's disease; a person suffering any contagious disease requiring similar isolation.
  Quotations
  And Tamburlane cloked the fantasticall cruelty, he exercised upon Lazars or Leprousmen, with a foolish kinde of humanitie, putting all he could finde or heare-of, to death, (as he said,) to ridde them from so painefull and miserable a life, as they lived.
  1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 37, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […]
  Why were they proud? Because fair orange-mountsWere of more soft ascent than lazar stairs?
  1820, John Keats, “Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil. A Story from Boccaccio.”, in Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, London: […] [Thomas Davison] for Taylor and Hessey, […], stanza XVI, page 57
adjective
not comparable
1. (archaic) Synonym of leprous: afflicted by Hansen's disease; afflicted by any contagious disease requiring similar isolation.