Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To contaminate with a pathogenic microorganism or agent.
- v. To communicate a pathogen or disease to.
- v. To invade and produce infection in.
- v. To contaminate or corrupt: envy that infected their thoughts; a society that was infected by racism.
- v. To affect in a contagious way: "His fear infected me, and . . . I followed as fast as I could” ( W.H. Hudson).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To affect as with something infused or instilled; imbue; impregnate; permeate: used especially of that which is bad or hurtful, but sometimes also of that which is good or indifferent.
- Specifically To taint with disease or the seeds of disease, either physical or moral: as, to infect a person with smallpox; literature infected with immorality.
- In law, to taint or contaminate with illegality, or expose to penalty, seizure, or forfeiture.
- Synonyms To poison, pollute, defile.
- Infected; tainted; affected unfavorably.
- Contaminated with illegality; having a flaw in the title.
- Marred; discolored; darkened.
- In philology, to affect the quality of a sound in a following or preceding syllable: used especially in reference to the influence of prominent vowels, and phonetic changes, in the Celtic language.
Wiktionary
- v. transitive to bring into contact with a substance that can cause illness (a pathogen)
- v. transitive to make somebody enthusiastic about one's own passion
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. obsolete Infected. Cf. enfect.
- v. To taint with morbid matter or any pestilential or noxious substance or effluvium by which disease is produced
- v. To affect with infectious disease; to communicate infection to.
- v. To communicate to or affect with, as qualities or emotions, esp. bad qualities; to corrupt; to contaminate; to taint by the communication of anything noxious or pernicious.
- v. (Law) To contaminate with illegality or to expose to penalty.
WordNet 3.0
- v. affect in a contagious way
- v. communicate a disease to
- v. corrupt with ideas or an ideology
- v. contaminate with a disease or microorganism
Etymologies
- From Latin infectus, perfect passive participle of inficiō ("dye, taint"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English infecten, to afflict with disease, from Latin īnficere, īnfect-, to stain, infect (in-, in; see in-2 + facere, to do; see dhē- in Indo-European roots). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Widescreen, and features "infect" - ious bonus materials including a new audio commentary with the director and cast members, the featurette "Beneath The Skin: The Making of Cabin Fever" and more.”
“But you weren't supposed to do that under the old pre-war gold standard, because while it was OK for the countries that did it other countries with too little gold couldn't "un-sterilize" ( "infect"?) money, so there was a net deflationary effect world-wide.”
Lessons of the Great Depression, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“Kinda makes you think people can be friends and not "infect" each other.”
Top Liberal Group Hammers Decision For Rick Warren To Deliver Obama's Inaugural Invocation
“And you are NOT a DIRTY, GROSS, INFECTED scary woman who stole some kid just so you could "infect" them.”
“In a 2005 paper, Dr. Deisseroth and another researcher, Ed Boyden, showed how to "infect" certain nerves with a virus that made them light-sensitive.”
“We don't celebrate this festival, per se, but we have a neighbor who is highly enthusiastic about holidays and decorations, and you'll always find her house and yard decorated with seasonal themes that kind of infect you with the spirit!”
“She then states, "Passion is infectious, and so is caring," and goes on to discuss how we can "infect" our colleagues and, I would hope, our institutions with this caring attitude by modeling it and by getting enough people on-board who care that the others start caring without really realizing it.”
“They were also able to "infect" memory cards such that the malicious program could be distributed to a wide population of machines (given enough time).”
“It turns out the people who have the most influence – the most ability to "infect" others with new ways of thinking – are those with diverse networks.”
“The concept of Virus 3 is insanely simple – you have to 'infect' a screen full of coloured shapes until they're all the same colour.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘infect’.
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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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chibiryuu's Words
sugary, amalgam, zaftig, incommensurability, isomorphism, fold, awesome, cute, hack, dichotomy, pyrrhic, bifurcate and 89 more...
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worddom
put words in their place
theca, wisdom, kingdom, freedom, boredom, seldom, martyrdom, abdomen, doom, samhita, duma, dumka and 151 more...
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my dictionary
able, abnormally, abroad, absent, abstract, acceptable, acceptance, access, accessible, accession, according to, account and 4551 more...
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TECHNOLOGY BUZZWORDS
It's a list of helpful words that is used on the web.
Web, Online, Broadcast, download, infect, Virus, Internet, Blog, Chat, Freeware, Webcam, Podcast and 9 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for infect.
yarb He looked distastefully at the age-cracked walls, stained with patches of damp that seemed like a material form of disgrace. That she should have grown to beauty in these infect surroundings made him feel, as he had often done before, that she was not all human and corruptible, but that her flesh was mixed with precious substance not subject to decay, her blood interpenetrated with the material of jewels.
- Rebecca West, The Judge Jul 29, 2009