Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Capable of causing infection.
  • adjective Capable of being transmitted by infection.
  • adjective Capable of transmitting a disease; contagious.
  • adjective Spreading or tending to spread from one to another.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Communicable by infection; easily diffused or spread from person to person or from place to place, as a disease, a moral influence, or a mental condition: specifically applied to diseases which are capable of being communicated from one to another, or which pervade certain places, attacking persons there, independently of any contact with those already sick. Infectious diseases include contagious and miasmatic diseases.
  • Capable of communicating infection; that infects, taints, or corrupts; contaminating: as, infectious clothing; infectious air; an infectious vice.
  • In law, capable of contaminating with illegality; exposing to seizure or forfeiture.
  • Synonyms Catching, communicable.
  • Contaminating, poisoning, defiling.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Having qualities that may infect; communicable or caused by infection; pestilential; epidemic
  • adjective Corrupting, or tending to corrupt or contaminate; vitiating; demoralizing.
  • adjective (Law) Contaminating with illegality; exposing to seizure and forfeiture.
  • adjective Capable of being easily diffused or spread; sympathetic; readily communicated.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective pathology, of an illness Transmitted from one person to another, usually through the air breathed.
  • adjective pathology, of a person Able to infect others.
  • adjective of feelings and behaviour Spreading quickly from one person to another.
  • adjective informal Memorable and invoking excitement or interest.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective caused by infection or capable of causing infection
  • adjective of or relating to infection
  • adjective easily spread

Etymologies

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Examples

  • BLITZER: It brings new meaning to the term infectious enthusiasm.

    CNN Transcript Feb 21, 2008 2008

  • Technically speaking, when you hear a veterinarian speaking of the condition, you will hear the term infectious tracheobronchitis.

    Shaister Miester Do Da 2008

  • This general result I shall only support by the authority of Dr. Ramsbotham, who gives, as the result of his experience, that the same symptoms belong to what he calls the infectious and the sporadic forms of the disease, and the opinion of Armstrong in his original Essay.

    The Harvard Classics Volume 38 Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) Various

  • This general result I shall only support by the authority of Dr. Ramsbotham, who gives, as the result of his experience, that the same symptoms belong to what he calls the infectious and the sporadic forms of the disease, and the opinion of Armstrong in his original Essay.

    The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever 1909

  • This general result I shall only support by the authority of Dr. Ramsbotham, who gives, as the result of his experience, that the same symptoms belong to what he calls the infectious and the sporadic forms of the disease, and the opinion of

    Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works Oliver Wendell Holmes 1851

  • This general result I shall only support by the authority of Dr. Ramsbotham, who gives, as the result of his experience, that the same symptoms belong to what he calls the infectious and the sporadic forms of the disease, and the opinion of Armstrong in his original Essay.

    Medical Essays, 1842-1882 Oliver Wendell Holmes 1851

  • I'll be fully engulfed in infectious disease before mid morning!

    Anhedonia (excerpt) Laura Preble 2010

  • And its not being infectious is assuredly an important consideration.

    Letter 111 2009

  • Without a doubt, anyone who saw the movie Contagion would label infectious diseases a pressing public health crisis.

    Linda Rosenberg: A Silent Public Health Crisis Linda Rosenberg 2011

  • Dr. Cahill, senior attending physician in infectious diseases and emergency medicine at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, serves as the orchestra's in-house physician, treating everything from violinists 'stiff necks to an epidemic of food poisoning that occurred while the orchestra was on tour several years ago.

    One Virtuoso Physician Ralph Gardner Jr. 2010

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