the.com/common cold

means A mild, extremely contagious viral infection of the nose and throat, caused by any of a few hundred different viruses, that gives you a runny nose, sneezing, and a sore throat for about a week.

from 'Cold' the illness got its name from 'cold' the temperature thanks to an old folk belief, dating back at least to ancient Greek medicine, that chilling of the body caused the sniffles. We now know it's viral, not thermal — being cold doesn't cause a cold — but the association stuck hard enough that English (and several other languages) just kept the name. 'Common' was tacked on later simply because, well, nothing in human experience is more common.