virulent
adjEtymology
PIE word *wisós From Middle English virulent (“leaking or seeping pus, purulent; (of putrefaction) extremely severe (sense uncertain)”) [and other forms], borrowed from Latin vīrulentus (“poisonous”), from vīrus (“poison; venom; slime, slimy liquid; stinking smell; nasty taste”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *wisós (“poison; slime; fluidity”)) + -ulentus (suffix meaning ‘abounding in, full of’, forming adjectives). Sense 4 (“of a pathogen: replicating within its host cell, then immediately causing it to undergo lysis”) is derived from French virulent, which was first used in this sense by the French biologist François Jacob (1920–2013) and his co-authors in a 1953 article.
Definitions
Of animals, plants, or substances
Of animals, plants, or substances: extremely venomous or poisonous.
Extremely hostile or malicious
Extremely hostile or malicious; intensely acrimonious.
- The politicians were virulent in their hatred of the president.
- More venemous and much more virulent / Then any poyſoned tode, or any ſerpent.
Of a disease or disease-causing agent
Of a disease or disease-causing agent: malignant, able to cause damage to the host.
›+ 1 more definitionshow fewer
Of a pathogen
Of a pathogen: replicating within its host cell, then immediately causing it to undergo lysis.
The neighborhood
- neighborvirulence
- neighborvirulency
- neighborvirus
- neighborpathogenic
Vish — recursive loop
A definitional loop anchored at virulent. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.
A definitional loop anchored at virulent. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.
10 hops · closes at virulent
curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA