Contagion

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -eɪdÊ’É™n

Origin

From Middle English (late 14th century), from Old French, from Latin contagio ("a touching, contact, contagion") related to contingo ("touch closely")

Full definition of contagion

Noun

1. A disease spread by contact
2. The spread or transmission of such a disease
3. The spread of anything harmful, as if it were such a disease
4. (finance) A situation in which small shocks, which initially affect only a few financial institutions or a particular region of an economy, spread to the rest of financial sectors and other countries whose economies were previously healthy.
• 2011, George Soros, Project Syndicate, Germany Must Defend the Euro:And it was German procrastination that aggravated the Greek crisis and caused the contagion that turned it into an existential crisis for Europe.
5. (finance) A resulting recession or crisis developed in such manner.

Derived terms

• anticontagion
• contagionism
• contagionist