Virus
Pronunciation
- UK enPR: vīʹrəs, IPA: /ˈvaɪɹəs/
- Rhymes: -aɪɹəs
Origin
From Latin virus ("poison, slime, venom"). First use in the computer context by David Gerrold in his 1972 book When HARLIE Was One.
Full definition of virus
Noun
virus
(plural viruses)- (archaic) Venom, as produced by a poisonous animal etc.
- A type of microscopic agent that causes an infectious disease; the disease so caused.
- 2013, Katie L. Burke, In the News, Bats host many high-profile viruses that can infect humans, including severe acute respiratory syndrome and Ebola.
- He caught a virus and had to stay home from school.
- (pathology, microbiology, virology) A submicroscopic infectious organism, now understood to be a non-cellular structure consisting of a core of DNA or RNA surrounded by a protein coat. It requires a living cell to replicate, and often causes disease in the host organism.
- 2001, Leslie Iversen, Drugs: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford 2001, p. 64)Viruses are the smallest and most simplified forms of life.
- (computing) A computer virus.