Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definitions: Infectious |
InfectiousAdjective1. Caused by infection or capable of causing infection; viruses and other infective agents"; "a carrier remains infective without himself showing signs of the disease". 2. Easily spread; "fear is exceedlingly infectious; children catch it from their elders"- Bertrand Russell. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "infectious" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1588. (references) |
| Domain | Definitions |
Medicine | Each component was. . . tested. . . to see if it could infect tobacco plants. Only. . . RNA proved to be --. Thus transmitted the traits of tobacco mosaic virus. . Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted. | |||
| Entry | Source | Expression | Field |
| INH | English | Infectious necrotic hepatitis | Food & Agriculture, Biology & Biotechnology |
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |||
Synonym: InfectiousSynonym: infective (adj). (additional references) |
| Antonym: noninfectious (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Insalubrity | Contagious, infectious, catching, taking, epidemic, zymotic; epizootic. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Human thought is so primitive it's looked upon as an infectious disease by the rest of the universe. (Men in Black; writing credit: Ed Solomon) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Periodicals |
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Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | The earliest visible stage of HIV replication occurs when viral proteins accumulate under the cell membrane in a process called budding (a). In the next stage a crescent shaped early bud has constricted, forming a membrane-encapsulated sphere, with the dense center called a viral nucleoid (b). As the constricting process continues, the virus pinches off and becomes free extracellular infectious virus (c). At this stage, the dark circular mucleoid condenses into a bar; this morphologic feature is used to discriminate HIV-I from HTLV-II and HTLV-III. See artwork: GR-31.Credit: Dr. Matthew Gonda (photographer). |  | Illustration of formation of arthroconidia of Coccidioides immitis. Arthroconidia are the infectious forms.Credit: CDC. |
 | Varicella or Chickenpox, is an infectious disease caused by the varicella-zoster virus, which results in a blister-like rash, itching, tiredness and fever.Credit: CDC. |  | Technicians in a bacteriology laboratory in San Francisco, isolating Pasteurella (Yersinia) pestis during a plague study in 1965. Plague is an infectious disease of animals and humans caused by a bacterium named Yersinia pestis.Credit: CDC. |
 | One of the histopathologic characteristics of pinta, a nonvenereal treponemal disease contracted through direct contact with infectious lesions containing the bacterium Treponema carateum, is thickening of the epidermis.Credit: CDC. |  | Histopathology of lymph node showing Hamazaki-Wesenberg bodies, which are benign yellow -brown football-shaped structures sometimes confused with infectious agents.Credit: CDC. |
 | Tongue and palate of patient with infectious mononucleosis.Credit: CDC. |  | Smallpox is a serious, highly contagious, and sometimes fatal infectious disease. There is no specific treatment for smallpox disease, and the only prevention is vaccination.Credit: CDC. |
 | Vaccinia (smallpox) vaccine, derived from calf lymph, and currently licensed in the United States, is a lyophilized, live-virus preparation of infectious vaccinia virus. It does not contain smallpox (variola) virus.Credit: CDC. |  | Both macro and microgametocytes are products of the erythrocytic cycle. The gametocytes are infectious to mosquitoes when ingested. In the intestine of the mosquito, the microgametocyte enters the macrogametocyte and zygotes are produced.Credit: CDC. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Title | Author | Quote |
Emma | Austen, Jane | I hope not of a putrid infectious sort. |
Scarlet Letter | Hawthorne, Nathaniel | And the infectious poison of that sin had been thus rapidly diffused throughout his moral system. |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | The den into which his eyes were at that moment directed, was abject, filthy, fetid, infectious, gloomy, unclean. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Gonorrhea is a very common infectious disease. (references) | |
Website for emerging infectious disease resource links. (references) | ||
Person to person by contact with infectious secretions. (references) | ||
Business | This is a direct result of concerns regarding HIV and all other infectious diseases. (references) | |
Major diseases affecting the population were infectious diseases, tuberculosis, and diabetes. (references) | ||
Screening of the population for infectious diseases will be an important part of the health policy. (references) | ||
Civil Liberties | Slovenia | Limitations on these rights may be made only by statute and only where necessary in criminal cases, to control infectious disease, or in wartime. (references) |
Slovenia | These rights can be restricted only by an act of Parliament in circumstances involving national security, public safety, or protection against infectious diseases. (references) | |
Economic History | Mali | The bilateral agenda is dominated by efforts to increase broad-based growth, improve health and educational facilities, promote the sustainable use of natural resources, reduce the population growth rate, counter the spread of highly infectious diseases, encourage regional stability, build peacekeeping capabilities, institutionalize respect for human rights, and strengthen democratic institutions in offering good governance. (references) |
Human Rights | Azerbaijan | Overcrowding and poor medical care combined to make the spread of infectious diseases, including tuberculosis (TB), serious problems. (references) |
Cote d'Ivoire | Problems include overcrowding, malnutrition, a high incidence of infectious disease, and lack of treatment facilities and medications in sufficient quantities. (references) | |
Bahamas | All inmates are screened for infectious diseases, and prison officials estimate that about 7 percent of the incoming prison population is infected with the HIV virus. (references) | |
Trade | Nicaragua | For example, this applies to medicines for infectious diseases. (references) |
Bulgaria | Transit of goods such as arms or radioactive, explosive, inflammable, oxidizing, toxic, infectious or corrosive substances, require a transit permit. (references) | |
China | Catalogues of the Class A and B infectious or parasitic diseases of animals and the catalogues of the diseases, pests and weeds dangerous to plants are determined and announced by the AQSIQ. (references) | |
Travel | Nigeria | A number of infectious diseases are prevalent in Nigeria. (references) |
Peru | Cholera and other infectious diseases such as hepatitis are present in Peru. (references) | |
Cote D'ivoire | Avoid eating uncooked vegetables (salads), as these are frequently contaminated with amebas and other infectious agents. (references) | |
Lexicography | Devil's Dictionary | LAUGHTER, n. An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable. Liability to attacks of laughter is one of the characteristics distinguishing man from the animals -- these being not only inaccessible to the provocation of his example, but impregnable to the microbes having original jurisdiction in bestowal of the disease. Whether laughter could be imparted to animals by inoculation from the human patient is a question that has not been answered by experimentation. Dr. Meir Witchell holds that the infection character of laughter is due to the instantaneous fermentation of sputa diffused in a spray. From this peculiarity he names the disorder Convulsio spargens. |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Infectious" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 99.37% of the time. "Infectious" is used about 475 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 99.37% | 472 | 12,530 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.63% | 3 | 202,518 |
| Total | 100.00% | 475 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "infectious": avian infectious coryza ♦ avian infectious laryngotracheitis ♦ be infectious ♦ bovine infectious petechial fever ♦ chronic infectious arthritis ♦ equine infectious anaemia ♦ Equine Infectious Anemia ♦ equine infectious bronchitis ♦ Feline Infectious Enteritis ♦ Feline Infectious Peritonitis ♦ infectious abortion ♦ infectious avian encephalomyelitis ♦ infectious bovine keratoconjunctivitis ♦ infectious bovine rhinotracheitis ♦ infectious bulbar paralysis ♦ Infectious Bursal Disease Virus ♦ infectious coryza ♦ infectious coryza of chickens ♦ infectious coryza of fowl ♦ infectious degeneration ♦ infectious degeneration of grapes ♦ Infectious Diarrhea ♦ infectious disease ♦ infectious enteritis ♦ infectious haematopoietic necrosis ♦ infectious hepatitis ♦ infectious icterus ♦ infectious laryngotracheitis of fowls ♦ infectious matter ♦ infectious mononucleosis ♦ infectious necrotic hepatitis ♦ infectious organism ♦ Infectious Pancreatic Necrosis Virus ♦ Infectious parotitis ♦ infectious polyneuritis ♦ infectious rhinotracheitis ♦ infectious salmon anaemia ♦ infectious serositis ♦ infectious waste. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "infectious": infectious-disease. | |
Ending with "infectious": non-infectious. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "infectious"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | infektues (catching, contagious, pestiferous), ngjitës (adhesive, agglutinative, ascendant, catching, cement, communicable, contagious, dauby, epidemic, epidemical, glue, gluey, glutinous, gooey, gummy, hum paste, mucilage, pitchy, soaring, stick, sticking, sticky, tacky, tenacious, transmissible, upward, viscous), molepsës (infective, pestiferous, pestilent, pestilential, transmissible). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | مفسد (contaminated, corruptive, perversive, spoiling), ممكن بثه, ملوث (contaminated, defiled, dirty, filed, foul, impure, polluted, polluter, spotted, staining), معد (catching, catchy, communicable, contagious, designed, destined, intended, preparator, prepared, ready, transmissible). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | увличащ (enthralling, seductive), заразен (communicable, contagious, contaminated, infected, pestiferous, pestilent, pestilential), заразителен (catching, contagious, taking), инфекциозен. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Catalan | contagiós (catching, contagious). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 感" (tainted, Tainting). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | infekèní, nakažlivý (catching, contagious). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | infektiøs, smittefarlig. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | verpestend (catching, contagious, poisonous). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Esperanto | infekta (catching, contagious), kontaĝa (catching, contagious). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Farsi | فاسدکننده (Corrosive), مسری (Communicable, Communicative, Contagious, Epidemic, Zymotic), واگیر (Contagious, Epidemic), عفونی (Zymotic). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | tarttuva (adhesive, contagious). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | infectieux (each component was...tested...to see if it could infect tobacco plants. Only...RNA proved to be --. Thus transmitted the traits of tobacco mosaic virus..). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | infektiös (catching, contagious, infective). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | κολλητικόσ (catching, contagious), μεταδοτικός (communicable, contagious), μολυσμένοσ, μολυσματικόσ (contagious, infective), μολυσματικός (contagious, viral), λοιμώδης. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | מז"ם, מ"ביק, מ"בק (catching, catchy, glutinous). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | ragályos (catching, contagious, epidemic, epidemical, taking, zymotic). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | infettivo (catching, contagious), contagioso (catching, contagious, taking). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 貰泣き (infectious crying), 疫病 (infectious disease), 疫病 (epidemic, infectious disease, plague), 法定伝"病 (infectious disease requiring official reporting), 感"症 (infection, infectious disease), 伝"病 (contagious disease, epidemic, infectious disease), 伝"病 (contagious disease, epidemic, infectious disease), 届け出伝"病 (infectious disease which by law a physician must report to the authorities within 24 hours of diagnosis). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | で"せ"びょう (contagious disease, epidemic, infectious disease), ほうていで"せ"びょう (infectious disease requiring official reporting), か"せ"しょう (infection, infectious disease), やくびょう (epidemic, infectious disease, plague), もらいなき (infectious crying), とどけいでで"せ"びょう (infectious disease which by law a physician must report to the authorities within 24 hours of diagnosis), えきびょう (epidemic, infectious disease, plague). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Korean | 염하" (infective). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | trullee (corrupt, corrupt as practice, dirty, dirty in speech, sordid), troggalagh (absorbing, communicable, contractible, elevating, exhilarating, raising; builder), skeayllee, rheynneydagh, gowallagh (catching), gorlagh (diseased), goaillagh (contagious, receptive), foutagh (faulty, honeycombed). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Norwegian | smittsom (contagous), smittende. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | infectiousay infeccioso (absorbing, catching, contagious, infective, stunner, taking). (various references) infectat (infective), infecţios (catching, infective), transmisibil (catching, contagious, infective, inheritable, transmissible), molipsitor (cankerous, catching, contagious, foul, infective, taking), contagios (catching, contagious, foul, infective, pestilent, pestilential). (various references) заразный (catching, catchy, communicable, contagious, pestiferous, pestilent, zymotic), заразительный (catching, contagious). (various references) infektivan (communicable), zarazan (catching, communicable, contagious, miasmatic, pestiferous, pestilent, pestilential, plaguy, virulent, zymotic). (various references) infeccioso (infective), contagioso (catching, contagious). (various references) smittsam (catching, communicable, contagious), infektiös. (various references) ซึ่งติ"เชื้อ. (various references) bulaxici (catching, contagious), bulaşıcı (catching, contagious, corruptive, taking, transmitted, zymotic). (various references) яokanзly, яokanз. (various references) інфекційний (contagious, infective), заразний (cankerous, contagious, pestiferous, taking, transmissible, virulent, zymotic), заразливий (catching, contagious). (various references) lây (infective), dễ lây (infective). (various references) heintus (contagious). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "infectious": infectiously, infectiousness, infectiousnesses. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "infectious": noninfectious. (additional references) | |
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"Infectious" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: infectiosum, infectuous, infestious, infictious, insectious. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "infectious" (pronounced i'nfe"kshus) |
| 4 | -k sh u s | anxious, fractious, noxious, obnoxious, rambunctious. |
| 3 | -sh u s | ambitious, atrocious, audacious, auspicious, capacious, capricious, cautious, conscientious, conscious, contentious, delicious, efficacious, expeditious, facetious, factitious, fallacious, ferocious, fictitious, flirtatious, gracious, hellacious, herbaceous, inauspicious, injudicious, judicious, loquacious, luscious, malicious, nauseous, nutritious, ostentatious, overambitious, pernicious, precious, precocious, predaceous, pretentious, propitious, pugnacious, rapacious, repetitious, salacious, sebaceous, seditious, semiprecious, spacious, specious, subconscious, superstitious, surreptitious, suspicious, tenacious, tendentious, unconscious, unpretentious, vexatious, vicious, vivacious, voracious. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "c-e-f-i-i-n-o-s-t-u" | |
-2 letters: confutes, counties, cutinise, fictions, notifies. | |
-3 letters: confits, confuse, confute, contuse, cuisine, eosinic, fiction, finites, incites, infects, inosite, nifties, notices, section, suction, unifies, unities. | |
-4 letters: centos, cestoi, cities, coitus, confit, conies, contes, cosine, counts, cousin, cuties, cutins, feints, ficins, ficoes, finest, finite, fistic, foetus, founts, fucose, funest, fusion, fustic, futons, iciest, icones, incest, incise. | |
| Words containing the letters "c-e-f-i-i-n-o-s-t-u" | |
+2 letters: infectiously, infelicitous. | |
+3 letters: functionaries, liquefactions, misfunctioned, noninfectious. | |
+4 letters: autoinfections, emulsification, factitiousness, felicitousness, fictitiousness, infectiousness, infelicitously, reunifications, semifunctional, superinfection, unconformities. | |
+5 letters: anfractuosities, beautifications, centrifugations, emulsifications, functionalities, neuroscientific, superinfections. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)49 6E 66 65 63 74 69 6F 75 73 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references).. -. ..-. . -.-. - .. --- ..- ... |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01001001 01101110 01100110 01100101 01100011 01110100 01101001 01101111 01110101 01110011 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)I n f e c t i o u s |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0049 006E 0066 0065 0063 0074 0069 006F 0075 0073 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)43807271698675818785 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Quotations: Fiction 8. Quotations: Non-fiction | 9. Usage Frequency 10. Expressions 11. Expressions: Internet 12. Translations: Modern | 13. Abbreviations 14. Acronyms 15. Derivations 16. Rhymes | 17. Anagrams 18. Orthography 19. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
