Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Disease transmission by direct or indirect contact.
- n. A disease that is or may be transmitted by direct or indirect contact; a contagious disease.
- n. The direct cause, such as a bacterium or virus, of a communicable disease.
- n. Psychology The spread of a behavior pattern, attitude, or emotion from person to person or group to group through suggestion, propaganda, rumor, or imitation.
- n. A harmful, corrupting influence: feared that violence on television was a contagion affecting young viewers.
- n. The tendency to spread, as of a doctrine, influence, or emotional state.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Infectious contact or communication; specifically and commonly, the communication of a disease from one person or brute to another. A distinction between contagion and infection is sometimes adopted, the former being limited to the transmission of disease by actual contact of the diseased part with a healthy absorbent or abraded surface, and the latter to transmission through the atmosphere by floating germs or miasmata. There are, however, cases of transmission which do not fall under either of these divisions, and there are some which fall under both. In common use no precise discrimination of the two words is attempted. See
epidemic and endemic. - n. Hence The communication of a state of feeling, particularly of moral feeling, or of ideas, from one person to another; especially, the communication of moral evil; propagation of mischief; infection: as, the contagion of enthusiasm; the contagion of vice or of evil example.
- n. Contagium.
- n. Pestilential influence; malarial or poisonous exhalations.
- n. A contagious disease.
Wiktionary
- n. A disease spread by contact
- n. The spread or transmission of such a disease
- n. The spread of anything harmful, as if it were such a disease
- n. finance A situation in which small shocks, which initially affect only a few financial institutions or a particular region of an economy, spread to the rest of financial sectors and other countries whose economies were previously healthy.
- n. finance A resulting recession or crisis developed in such manner.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Med.) The transmission of a disease from one person to another, by direct or indirect contact.
- n. That which serves as a medium or agency to transmit disease; a virus produced by, or exhalation proceeding from, a diseased person, and capable of reproducing the disease.
- n. The act or means of communicating any influence to the mind or heart.
- n. obsolete Venom; poison.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the communication of an attitude or emotional state among a number of people
- n. an incident in which an infectious disease is transmitted
- n. any disease easily transmitted by contact
Etymologies
- From Middle English (late 14th century), from Old French, from Latin contagio ("a touching, contact, contagion") related to contingo ("touch closely") (Wiktionary)
- Middle English contagioun, from Latin contāgiō, contāgiōn-, from contingere, contāct-, to touch; see contact. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Also, the euro debt - again, we hear the term contagion - has the possibility of affecting everything economic, not just solar.”
“In other words, their models did not have a built-in contagion or domino effect.”
“It added that Greece's support package would also benefit other members of the euro zone by curbing the severe risk of near-term contagion that would probably have resulted from a disorderly payment default or large haircut on outstanding Greek debt.”
The Wall Street Journal: Moody's Cuts Greek Debt Rating Further
“Returning bottles and cans to a filthy nest of contagion is ridiculous and archaic.”
“Then again contagion apocalypse films often follow along the lines of zombie apocalypse, but usually without the devouring a flesh.”
Steven Soderbergh’s CONTAGION Infects Warner Bros, Takes Their Money – Collider.com
“The contagion is sweeping me off my feet -- I, too, want to shout, The”
“It was fine of Ginger, and if the old woman caught some contagion from the "no end o 'meat" on the pork-ribs, it was still fine, though not so fine.”
“But with Moody's pointing out possible contagion from the Greek situation to the banking sector, Barclays is down 4. 9p to 317. 85p while Lloyds Banking Group is 0. 1p lower at 60p.”
The Guardian: Miners help FTSE to gain ground ahead of European Bank news
“In other words, the bailout was aimed in large measure at stopping contagion from the Greek debt markets from infecting other European markets.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘contagion’.
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EU Buzz - ALL words and expressions
A combined list of
1. EU Buzz - single words
2. EU Buzz - collocations
3. EU Buzz - the 100 most active
collocation constituentsabsorption capacity, absorption rate, acceding country, accession candidate, accession countries, accession country, accession criteria, accession cycle, accession negotia..., accession partner..., accession priorities, accession treaty and 2650 more...
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Unknown
coalition, cabinet, tweet, defuse, steep, ancestral, mindset, breach, infraction, egregious, curb, backbite and 282 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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EU Buzz - single words (1+2+3)
1. Strictly EU terms with special European meaning used only in the EU
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2. Keywords central to the understanding of the EU (people working for the EU are usually able to give thematic...acceleration, action, additionality, administrator, agenda, agricultural, agri-environmental, agriflation, agri-food, applicant, approach, assent and 1325 more...
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Tag! You're it.
tag, tags, tagging, Tagalog, baronetage, montage, tagalong, Rabindranath Tagore, uredostage, ragtag and bobtail, voltage, price tag and 96 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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Brinstar's Words
cobalt, obfuscate, archon, wii, sniper, arcane, celerity, visage, auspicious, ether, epidemic, lich and 138 more...
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Naresh_Gre
The path meanders through the vineyards
meander, labyrinth, Sinuous, gyrate, caron, awry, credo, banter, juxtaposition, argot, inexorable, foibles and 223 more...
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Aequoria's list
affect, deleterious, nuance, pliant, verbatim, pertinent, latter, municipality, provincial, voyeuristic, circumlocution, wane and 798 more...
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Zooey's list
cosmology, consummate, demiurge, paradisiacal, reconnaissance, intransigent, otiose, zeitgeist, coalesce, zeitgeber, absolve, abstruse and 105 more...
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Misc. Words.
Words I like to use, words I like but may forget.
corrosion, astonish, solace, ferment, continuum, kinesthetic, permeate, repose, caprice, cardinal, discourse, surrender and 610 more...
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kmalladi's favorites
edification, penchant, ablution, extricate, frank, triumvirate, trifecta, egregious, hoi polloi, articulate, antediluvian, brusque and 291 more...
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NakedFringe's Words
masticate, chamber, orchid, mandolin, yellow, pomegranate, conundrum, paradox, gyrate, calamitous, opalescent, cacophony and 533 more...
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just words.
coquette, solecism, peripherally, recrudescence, viscid, turpitude, sententious, light-heeled, interminably, unflappable, palpably, solicitous and 215 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2719 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for contagion.

bilby "The preoccupation with local color encouraged love of surfaces, if not a satisfaction with surfaces alone; so that, though the local color novel was likely to be a more serious performance than the short story of the type, it nevertheless suffered from the contagion of triviality."
- Carl Van Doren, 'The American Novel'. Sep 20, 2009