Grippe

From the graphic novel of Casino Royale, Bond’s friend Mathis caused feedback in a microphone to harm the eavesdropper who is pretending to be sick with the flu.

This is an old word for the “flu.”

Why I Looked It Up

In the James Bond novel Casino Royale, Bond’s hotel room is bugged by the manager’s wife, who pretends to be sick with the flu so she can eavesdrop.

Postscript

In a book about the Vanderbilt family, I found this:

[he] had taken suddenly ill with an attack of “the grippe,” a Gilded Age term for influenza…

Curiously, the Gilded Age was the late 1800s and early 1900s, while Casino Royale was written (and set) in 1953.