patient zero
nounEtymology
Originally patient O (standing for out of California), referring to Gaëtan Dugas, a superspreader of AIDS who was at the time erroneously believed to have introduced the virus to the United States. The letter O was later misinterpreted as a zero.
Definitions
The initial patient in the population of an epidemiological investigation.
The source or origin of something.
- Danny Boyle, patient zero of the zombie revival, reviews The Walking Dead.
- While hurricane-nuking is the most outlandish example of Trump's search for silver-bullet solutions, patient zero for this approach to governance is Trump's border wall.
The neighborhood
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for patient zero. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA