virus

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 
It appears to be a novel virus - in other words a virus that humans haven't had experience with.

View all »
Definitions (18)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (4)

  1. noun Any of various simple submicroscopic parasites of plants, animals, and bacteria that often cause disease and that consist essentially of a core of RNA or DNA surrounded by a protein coat. Unable to replicate without a host cell, viruses are typically not considered living organisms.
  2. noun A disease caused by a virus.
  3. noun Something that poisons one's soul or mind: the pernicious virus of racism.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (10)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (3)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (48)

  • Because a virus is a virus, and that one was good and potent. —  Demons Don't Dream
  • Yet those who perhaps first infected the world with the virus are also ready with the anti-virus. —  Bloggers.Pakistan
  • This may not mean that they caught the virus, but that the virus was already present but was lying dormant until a trigger event occurred. —  Find Free Articles - ArticlesBase
  • The people who write the virus are the people who write anti-virus. —  Breaking News: CBS News
  • Health officials said they don't want to "overly alarm" the public but they stress the need for people to be vigilant as the virus is a threat to public health. —  Yakima Herald-Republic Weekly News
 

Tags

virus hasn't been tagged yet.

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Words tagged virus

Stats

This word has been looked up 77 times.

On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Add a related word »
Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

bacteria ·  infection ·  disease ·  vaccine ·  toxin ·  poison ·  gene ·  germ ·  chemical ·  epidemic ·  plague ·  influenza

Used in the same contextWord Family

virus:   viruses
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Latin vīrus, poison.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. = French virus = Spanish vírus = Portuguese virus, from Latin virus, a slime, poison, slimy liquid, venom, an offensive odor, a sharp taste, = Greek ἰός (for *Νισός), poison, = Sanskrit visha, poison, = Irish fi, poison.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »

/ˈvaɪrəs/
by American Heritage

Charts

frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word a few times a week.

Recently looked up

closings · mirthfulness · lox · gown · qm

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

Der dicke Dachdecker deckte dir dein Dach, drum dank dem dicken Dachdecker, dass der dicke Dachdecker dir dein Dach deckte. · weitläufig · und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, so leben sie noch heute · redescheu · selbstverständlich