Definition of "catarrh"

Jonah mixed him a pitch-like potion of gin and molasses, which he swore was a sovereign cure for all colds and catarrhs whatsoever ...

1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter 3

“Where I went wrong,” he said, still speaking in that low, husky voice as if he had been a ghost suffering from catarrh, “was in getting engaged to Phyllis Mills.”

1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins