Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of or relating to contagion.
- adj. Transmissible by direct or indirect contact; communicable: a contagious disease.
- adj. Capable of transmitting disease; carrying a disease: stayed at home until he was no longer contagious.
- adj. Spreading or tending to spread from one to another; infectious: a contagious smile.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Communicable by contagion; that may be imparted by contact or by emanations; catching: as, a contagious disease.
- Containing or generating contagion; poisonous; pestilential: as, contagious air; contagious clothing.
- Propagated by influence or incitement; exciting like feeling or action; spreading or liable to spread from one to another: as, contagious example; a contagious speculation.
- Arising from or due to contagion, in either sense; brought about by propagation or incitement: as, a contagious epidemic.
Wiktionary
- adj. Of a disease, easily transmitted to others.
- adj. Of a fashion, laughter, etc., easily passed on to others.
- adj. Of a person, having a disease that can be transmitted to another person by touch.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. (Med.) Communicable by contact, by a virus, or by a bodily exhalation; catching.
- adj. Conveying or generating disease; pestilential; poisonous.
- adj. Spreading or communicable from one to another; exciting similar emotions or conduct in others.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. (of disease) capable of being transmitted by infection
- adj. easily diffused or spread as from one person to another
Examples
“I used the word contagious rather than dangerous on purpose.”
“Among the infectious diseases are some that are quite directly and quickly conveyed from person to person and to these the term contagious is applied.”
“To quell demonstrations after the Sean Bell killing, he asked the Rand Corporation to investigate what he termed "contagious shooting.”
The Huffington Post: Len Levitt: Ray Kelly: Too Much Respect
“Our daughter has just learned the word contagious and uses it every chance she gets.”
The Huffington Post: Hollye Harrington Jacobs: Discussing Breast Cancer with Children
“And this: The danger facing the crew is a "linguistic virus" that spreads by forcing its victims to utter a certain contagious phrase that kills the listener in a gruesome way.”
“He also mentions that "some use with good effect the drinking of one's own urine ... for protection in contagious times.”
Pestilence and Headcolds: Encountering Illness in Colonial Mexico
“Panic is usually defined as contagious, groundless, unreasoning fear.”
“In it, Gladwell chronicles events, episodes and trends that he describes as contagious or viral or in the most extreme language, epidemics.”
Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater: Spreading Positive Social Epidemics
“That the plague was not what is commonly called contagious, like the scarlet fever, or extinct small-pox, was proved.”
“It is sometimes called contagious, infectious, and epizoötic pleuro-pneumonia, -- contagious or infectious, from its supposed property of transmission from the diseased to the healthy animal.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘contagious’.
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Words that shouldn't be used on a fir...
probation, trekkie, wart, unemployed, fetish, suspended driver'..., felon, aerophagia, undies, debt collector, girlfriend, boyfriend and 272 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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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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Miss Polly had a dolly who was...
sick, sickly, ill, unwell, under the weather, unhealthy, off colour, bedridden, diseased, infected, contagious, queasy and 14 more...
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Words that should be heard in songs m...
Inspired by PossibleUnderscore's list of words overused in modern pop music.
giant squid, bamboo, colonic, herbivore, raptor, dodecahedron, largesse, sinuses, dim sum, carburetor, transubstantiation, wife and 54 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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hifi_del_norte's Words
vegetable, spatula, bang, fluctuate, carnage, simple, audio, hi-fi, empanada, bonnie, gazpacho, memoirs and 108 more...
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Idk, I like these words.
ethereality, apathy, consideration, soul, safety, lone wolf, darkness, pressure, ocean, few, collapse, believe and 155 more...
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1906 Railway Cipher Code
Terms from the Standard Cipher Code of the American Railway Association, 1906. The terms were shorthand for common phrases used in telegraphic communications between station agents and Railway Asso...
abdominal, abetting, abiology, ablative, abnormal, abominate, aboveboard, abrasive, absinth, abstinent, accursed, acetate and 212 more...
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What Do You Mean @
What Abt these ... :)
somber, self effacing, conundrum, outlandish, mesmerize, endemic, shelve, fledgling, acolyte, absurd, rampant, narcissist and 163 more...
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Foxtrot's list
afternoon delight, almost unreal, full of spark, dazzle n daze, alarming stride, rushing tide, double dagger, in the nude, constant pressure, widow maker, bourbon on the rocks, air fare holme and 311 more...
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Words That Populate My Mind
This is a collection of words I love, old ones that I love the sound of when I repeat them for years and new ones coined in news articles on up and coming trends and technologies - most of them I k...
aroma, mojo, blithely, fringe, fray, synchronicity, doublespeak, buzzword, thoughtcrime, portmanteau, newspeak, oldspeak and 963 more...
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Christmas Pageant Chapter One
Vocabulary for Chapter One of the Best Christmas Pageant Ever.
cussed, clonked, double-jointed, contagious, volunteer, hydrangea, blackmail, horrified, collared, bobcat, hysterical, penitentiary
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My Necessary
condescend, approbation, precursor, vie, jostle, vegetation, exhaust, technocrat, preside, exacerbate, counterproductive, contrive and 22 more...
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I am
considering, ruined, troubled, worried, frustrated, negative, depressing, depressed, depression, sick, exhausted, alone and 59 more...
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Words that describe me...
My Friends (that's my bets John McCain impression!)
This is a list of words that I think describe me. Would you be so kind as to vote for the 10 you think are most fitting? Your vote w...change, imagination, irreverent, creativity, generalist, strategic, simple, integrity, amuse, ideas, remarkable, lightning rod and 36 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for contagious.
hernesheir Railroad telegraphers' shorthand for "Advise if _____ stock has arrived; If so, what is condition?" --US Railway Association, Standard Cipher Code, 1906. Jan 21, 2013
bilby
Elephants are contagious!
Be careful how you tread.
An Elephant that's been trodden on
Should be confined to bed!
Leopards are contagious too.
Be careful tiny tots.
They don't give you a temperature
But lots and lots - of spots.
- Spike Milligan, 'Contagion'. Jul 6, 2009