virus
(ˈvaɪərəs)
[a. L. vīrus slimy liquid, poison, offensive odour or taste. Hence also F., Sp., Pg. virus.
In Lanfranc's Cirurgie (c 1400) 77 the word, explained as ‘a thin venomy quitter’, is merely taken over from the Latin text.]
1. Venom, such as is emitted by a poisonous animal. Also fig.
| 1599 Broughton's Lett. iv. 14 You..haue..spit out all the virus and poyson you could conceiue, in the abuse of his..person. 1702 Mead Poisons 26 The Story of Cleopatra..pouring the Virus of an Asp into a Wound made in her Arm by her own Teeth. 1728 Chambers Cycl. s.v. Viper, By the Microscope, the Virus [of the viper] was found to consist of minute Salts in continual Motion. 1867 Duke of Argyll Reign of Law i. 37 That the deadly virus shall in a few minutes curdle the blood. 1879 R. T. Smith Basil Gt. ix. 111 He it was who hollowed the minute sting of the bee to shed its virus through. |
2. Path. a. A morbid principle or poisonous substance produced in the body as the result of some disease,
esp. one capable of being introduced into other persons or animals by inoculations or otherwise and of developing the same disease in them. Now superseded by the next sense.
| 1728 Chambers Cycl., Virulent, a Term apply'd to any thing that yields a Virus; that is, a corrosive or contagious Pus. 1771 Smollett Humph. Cl., To Sir W. Philip 3 Oct., When he examined the egesta, and felt his pulse, he declared that much of the virus was discharged. 1799 Med. Jrnl. I. 448 Whether opium applied externally, may or may not prove an antidote to the canine virus. 1800 Ibid. III. 352 The pustules..contain a perfect Small-pox virus. 1826 S. Cooper First Lines Surg. (ed. 5) 165 In consequence of the virus being mixed with the saliva of the rabid animal. 1878 T. Bryant Pract. Surg. I. 79 It should never be forgotten that it is the virus which infects the system. 1899 Allbutt's Syst. Med. VIII. 602 Possibly there is some virus acting on the nerve-centres. 1910 Hiss & Zinsser Text-bk. Bacteriol. xlvii. 639 Virus dried for eight days was no longer regularly infectious. 1922 Jrnl. Amer. Med. Assoc. 11 Feb. 411/1 It was quickly found that the virus floats in a suspending fluid of specific gravity 1·14, while it sinks in a suspending fluid of specific gravity 1·11... To purify it,..it seems best to wash it and centrifugalize it in a suspending fluid just heavier than itself. |
b. Pl.
viruses. An infectious organism that is
usu. submicroscopic, can multiply only inside certain living host cells (in many cases causing disease) and is now understood to be a non-cellular structure lacking any intrinsic metabolism and usually comprising a DNA or RNA core inside a protein coat (see also
quot. 1977).
Formerly referred to as filterable viruses, their first distinguishing characteristic being the ability to pass through filters that retained bacteria.
| [1880 Pasteur in Compt. Rend. XCI. 673 Le virus est constitué par un parasite microscopique qu'on multiplie aisément par la culture, en dehors du corps des animaux que le mal peut frapper.] 1881 Sci. Amer. Suppl. 4 June 4516/1 M. Pasteur writes: ‘.. The virus is a microscopical parasite, which may be multiplied by cultivation outside of the body of an animal.’ 1899 G. Newman Bacteria vii. 260 The vaccination in small-pox is an inoculation of the virus of the disease;..the plague and cholera vaccinations are inoculations of pure cultures of living virus from out⁓side the body. 1900 Jrnl. Compar. Path. & Therapeutics XIII. 16 The virus of foot-and-mouth disease passes through a Berkefeld filter when it is suspended in a watery liquid. 1906 Philippine Jrnl. Sci. I. 583 The length of time during which the virus may remain viable in the soil and in stables is not determined. 1908 Jrnl. Compar. Path. & Therapeutics XIII. 59 Filters which are efficient for the arrest of the smallest of the known visible microbes allow the viruses of these diseases to pass through their pores. 1912 Jrnl. Med. Res. XXVII. 20 The probable nature of filterable viruses, whether protozoan or bacterial. 1912, etc. [see filterable a.]. 1915 Lancet 4 Dec. 1242/2 We do not know for certain the nature of an ultra-microscopic virus. It may be a minute bacterium that will only grow on living material, or it may be a tiny amœba which..thrives on living micro-organisms... It is quite possible that an ultra-microscopic virus belongs somewhere in this vast field of life more lowly organised than the bacterium or amœba. 1929 Jrnl. Amer. Med. Assoc. 6 Apr. 1147/1 Throughout this paper the terms filtrable viruses and viruses will be used interchangeably. 1931 Nature 10 Oct. 599/2 But a few years ago I think that we should have had no difficulty in accepting three cardinal properties as characterising a virus, namely, invisibility by ordinary microscopic methods, failure to be retained by a filter fine enough to prevent the passage of all visible bacteria, and failure to propagate itself except in the presence of, and perhaps in the interior of, the cells which it infects. 1935 Science 28 June 644/1 A crystalline material, which has the properties of tobacco-mosaic virus, has been isolated from the juice of Turkish tobacco plants infected with this virus. Ibid. 8 Nov. 443/2 The defining characters of filterable viruses appear to be ultramicroscopic size and obligate parasitism. 1963 J. H. Burn Drugs, Med. & Man xix. 188 One view is that these cells contain a virus and the cancer begins when the virus is no longer kept under control. 1972 N. Calder Restless Earth iv. 95/2 The Moon was declared free of viruses or spores that might infect the Earth. 1973 [see mycoplasma]. 1977 S. S. Hughes Virus 112 The term ‘virus’ as used by bacteriologists of the 1880s and 1890s meant simply ‘an agent of infectious disease’. This is the usage in Pasteur's dictum: ‘Every virus is a microbe.’ (1890). 1982 Sci. Amer. Apr. 22/3 Viruses..are not included; noncellular, they are mere genetic recipes and are not alive. 1983 W. A. Stevens Virol. Flowering Plants i. 3 Bawden (1956) defined a virus as an obligate parasitic pathogen with dimensions less than 200nm. Although possibly adequate in its day, such a definition does not exclude naked nucleic acid pathogens—the viroids, or some mycoplasmas. |
c. colloq. A virus infection.
| 1954 C. S. Lewis Lett. to Amer. Lady (1969) 24 We mustn't let these modern doctors get us down by calling a cold a virus and a sore throat a streptococcus. |
3. fig. A moral or intellectual poison, or poisonous influence. Also in weakened use, an infectious fear, anxiety, etc.
| 1778 Warner in Jesse Selwyn & Contemp. (1844) III. 317 Venice is a stink-pot, charged with the very virus of hell! 1807 Southey H. K. White 12 As if there were not enough of the leaven of disquietude in our natures, without inoculating it with this dilutement—this vaccine virus of envy. a 1834 Coleridge Shaks. Notes (1875) 189 The corrosive virus which inoculates pride with a venom not its own. a 1884 M. Pattison Mem. (1885) 239 The clerical virus would have lingered in the system. 1982 Economist 25 Dec. 83/1 The virus quickly spread. First Canada extracted a promise of restraint from Japan. Then West Germany's mercurial economics minister..hastened to Tokyo. |
4. Violent animosity; virulence.
| 1866 Alger Solit. Nat. & Man iv. 360 Two classes of men, however, he did hate with especial relish and virus. |
5. attrib. and
Comb., as (sense 2 b)
virus disease,
virus infection,
virus particle;
virus-carried,
virus-containing,
virus-free,
virus-induced,
virus-infected,
virus-like adjs.;
virus pneumonia, pneumonia caused by a virus rather than a bacterium.
| 1958 Times 12 June 11/3 The great diversity of *virus-carried diseases. Influenza, poliomyelitis, cholera, Australian Q-fever, [etc.]. |
| 1968 Times 3 Oct. 13/6 Antiserum..was found to react positively with a *virus-containing extract prepared from dahlias. |
| 1860 W. T. Fox in Trans. Obstetr. Soc. II. 228 This latter action is alike common to all forms of *virus disease. 1926 Jrnl. Trop. Med. & Hygiene XXIX. 19/2 The intricate processes involved in ‘virus’ diseases of plants and vertebrates. 1978 J. Gardner Dancing Dodo xvii. 126 Rift Valley Fever..a virus disease... Usually transmitted to humans by cattle, sheep, other animals: and usually in Asia. |
| 1946 Nature 26 Oct. 569/2 The great work of East Malling Research Station in raising and distributing *virus-free clonal stocks. |
| Ibid. 17 Aug. 217/2 M. B. Shimkin is also critical of the wide extrapolation of observations made on the relatively few *virus-induced tumours to the whole range of cancer. |
| Ibid. 23 Nov. 735/2 We have grown many thousands of seedlings from seeds which were obtained from *virus-infected plants..and in not a single instance have we found the seedlings diseased. |
| 1924 Jrnl. Exper. Med. XL. 773 (heading) A filterable *virus infection of rabbits. 1965 A. Roudybush Season for Death (1966) xxviii. 165 Mrs. Tor was suffering from a virus infection. 1982 R. Rendell Master of Moor xv. 165 He was ill, he had a virus infection. |
| 1946 Nature 17 Aug. 218/1 They found no evidence of the presence of a rapidly acting *virus-like principle associated with the Jensen rat sarcoma. 1972 Science 16 June 1225/2 Electron microscopy initially revealed that HBAg consists of virus⁓like particles approximately 20 nanometers in diameter. |
| 1968 Brit. Med. Bull. XXIV. 244/2 They [sc. the results] are consistent with the inactivation of a *virus particle by a single interaction with radiation. |
| 1929 Public Health Rep. (U.S.) XLIV. 2635 (heading) Vaccine *virus pneumonia in rabbits. 1977 ‘J. Bell’ Such Nice Client xix. 189 She died of a virus pneumonia caught in an epidemic at the hospital. |
| 1971 New Scientist 8 Apr. 82/2 The surface antigens also appear to be *virus-specific. |
| 1936 Discovery Oct. 329/1 Investigation of ten *virus strains. |
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Add:
[2.] d. Computing. Any sequence of code (
esp. one capable of being inserted in other programs) which when executed causes itself to be copied into other locations, and which is therefore capable of propagating itself within the memory of a computer or across a network, usually with deleterious results. See also
computer virus s.v. *
computer n. 3.
| 1972 D. Gerrold When Harlie was One 175 You know what a virus is, don't you?... The VIRUS program does the same thing. 1975 J. Brunner Shockwave Rider ii. 176 I'd have written the worm as an explosive scrambler, probably about half a million bits long, with a backup virus facility and a last-ditch infinitely replicating tail. 1984 F. Cohen in Finch & Dougall Computer Security 144 We define a computer ‘virus’ as a program that can ‘infect’ other programs by modifying them to include a possibly evolved copy of itself... Every program that gets infected may also act as a virus and thus the infection grows. Ibid. 146 On November 3, 1983, the first virus was conceived of as an experiment to be presented at a weekly seminar on computer security. The concept was first introduced in this seminar by the author, and the name ‘virus’ was thought of by Len Adleman. 1985 Time 4 Nov. 94/3 A few years ago, Richard Skrenta Jr...wrote a virus program called Cloner. Every 30th time a disk containing the program is used, the virus harmlessly flashes a few verses across the screen; then the interrupted task resumes where it left off. 1989 Accountancy June 148/4 The..Centre will also diagnose any disks sent in by users for any viruses. |