contagion
(kənˈteɪdʒən)
[ME. a. F. contagion, or ad. L. contāgiōn-em a touching, contact, contagion, f. con- together + tangĕre to touch. So It. contagione.]
1. a. The communication of disease from body to body by contact direct or mediate.
(The two earliest quots. perhaps belong to b or to 2.)
| a 1535 More De Quat. Noviss. Wks. 73/1 Yf a manne bee so dayntye stomaked, that goyng where contagion is, he woulde grudge to take a lyttle tryacle. 1594 Lady Russell in Ellis Orig. Lett. i. 233 III. 40 A comfortable litle breckfast agaynst the contagion of this tyme. a 1626 Bacon (J.), In infection and contagion from body to body, as the plague and the like, the infection is received many times by the body passive; but yet is..repulsed. 1658 Sir T. Browne Hydriot. i. 4 The Jewish Nation..to avoid contagion or pollution, in time of pestilence, burnt the bodies of their friends. 1801 Med. Jrnl. V. 146 Dr. Tissott..observes, that the Small-pox..does not propagate itself so much by contagion as by an infection of the air. 1860–1 F. Nightingale Nursing ii. 13 Scarlet fever would be no more ascribed to contagion but to its right cause. |
b. Contagious quality or influence.
| 1596 Spenser F.Q. v. vii. 11 Such is the powre of that same fruit, that nought The fell contagion may thereof restraine. 1601 Shakes. Jul. C. ii. i. 265 What, is Brutus sicke? And will he steale out of his wholsome bed To dare the vile contagion of the Night? 1805 Med. Jrnl. XIV. 561 The most striking contradictions in their belief and assertions on the subject of its contagion. |
2. A contagious disease or sickness; a plague or pestilence.
| 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. vii. lxiv. (1495) 281 Lepra also comith of fader and moder, and so this contagyon passyth in to the chylde as it were by lawe of herytage. 1555 Eden Decades 142 They [the Cannibals] haue spredde their generation..lyke a pestiferous contagion. 1650 Weldon Crt. Jas. I, 28 He was forced by that contagion [a plague] to leave the Metropolis. 1654 H. L'Estrange Chas. I (1655) 7 Bulloign, where she was to imbarque for England, (the contagion being then much at Calais). 1722 De Foe Plague (1840) 202 The contagion despised all medicine, death raged in every corner. 1856 R. A. Vaughan Mystics (1860) I. 243 In the year 1348 that terrible contagion known as the Black Death..appeared at Strasburg. |
3. a. The substance or principle by which a contagious disease is transmitted; = contagium.
| 1603 Lodge Plague B ij b, Contagion, is an euil qualitie in a bodie, communicated vnto an other by touch, engendring one and the same disposition in him to whom it is communicated. 1751 Chambers Cycl. s.v., In others [diseases] the contagion is transmitted through the air to a great distance, by means of steams, or effluvia, expiring from the sick. 1800 Med. Jrnl. III. 322 It ought to have been mentioned, whence this contagion came; or how it was generated in the prison. 1801 Ibid. V. 84 It may possibly be observed, that the Variolous Contagion, from having extended its influence over the earth's whole surface..cannot be destroyed either by accident or design. 1849 Robertson Serm. Ser. iv. xviii. (1876) 194 The food of man seems poisonous, the air is charged with contagion. |
b. concr. A poison that infects the blood. poet.
| 1602 Shakes. Ham. iv. vii. 148 Ile touch my point With this contagion [a poisonous ointment], that if I gall him slightly It may be death. |
c. transf.
| 1602 Shakes. Ham. iii. ii. 408 The verie witching time of night, When Churchyards yawne, and Hell it selfe breaths out Contagion to this world. |
4. fig. a. Hurtful, defiling, or corrupting contact; infecting influence.
| c 1386 Chaucer Sec. Nun's T. 72 My soule..That troubled is by the contagioun Of my body. 1483 Caxton Gold. Leg. 196/3 Thus Saynt geneuefe delyuerd Saynt celyne fro peryl and fro the contagyon of the world. 1592 tr. Junius on Rev. xviii. 4 The contagion of sin. 1643 Sir T. Browne Relig. Med. ii. §10 It is the corruption that I feare within me, not the contagion of commerce without me. 1776 Gibbon Decl. & F. I. xxi. 591 His mind was tainted by the contagion of fanaticism. 1836 Thirlwall Greece II. xiii. 190 The contagion of these vices undoubtedly spread through the nation. 1867 Freeman Norm. Conq. (1876) I. v. 282 Exposed to the contagion of foreign influence. |
b. Contagious or spreading moral disease; moral corruption.
| a 1533 Frith Wks. 115 (R.) This contagion began to spring euen in St. Paules tyme. 1669 Gale Crt. Gentiles i. iii. v. 63 An universal Contagion, or Corruption diffused throughout the whole of human Nature. 1796 Morse Amer. Geog. II. 587 All forsook their ancient faith, and became Mahometans..the contagion spread over Arabia, Syria, Egypt and Persia. 1848 Macaulay Hist. Eng. I. 401 A few eminent men..were exempt from the general contagion. |
5. fig. The contagious or ‘catching’ influence or operation of example, sympathy, and the like.
| 1632 J. Hayward tr. Biondi's Eromena 186 Her griefe alone was an universall contagion to the Universe. 1654 Whitlock Zootomia 208 Our opinions comming more by Contagion, than on Deliberation. 1781 Gibbon Decl. & F. II. 117 The contagion of loyalty and repentance was communicated from rank to rank. 1856 Froude Hist. Eng. (1858) II. vi. 14 By the contagion of example he gathered about him other men who thought as he did. 1862 Stanley Jew. Ch. (1877) I. xviii. 343 A contagion of goodness, of enthusiasm, of energy..almost impossible to resist. 1872 Yeats Growth Comm. 259 The contagion of adventure which was spread abroad by the Spanish discoveries. |
† 6. transf. Taint; tainting or adulterating contact; impure admixture. Obs.
| 1695 Woodward Nat. Hist. Earth i. (1723) 23 Multitudes of Shells..absolutely free from any such Mineral Contagion. Ibid. iv. (1723) 246 Even the most obvious and ordinary Minerals are not free from this Contagion of adventitious Matter. |
† 7. Foulness, noisomeness, stench. Obs.
| 1662 J. Chandler Van Helmont's Oriat. 102 The water of the same Well, three dayes before, sent forth the stinking savour of Brimstone, and..its contagion, yellowness, together with the turbulency of the water, did bewray it. |
8. Ecology. A greater occurrence of the individuals of a species in an area than could be accounted for by random distribution, thus forming aggregations.
| [1931 G. Pólya in Ann. Inst. H. Poincaré I. 139 La structure de la ‘contagion’ est homogène.] 1951 Barnes & Stanbury in Jrnl. Ecol. XXXIX. 172 The principle of contagion..is that the groups are distributed at random and that the number of individuals associated with each group is also random. 1957 P. Greig-Smith Quant. Plant Ecology iii. 61 Whitford..suggested the ratio of abundance..to frequency as a measure of contagion. |
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▸ Statistics. After French contagion (G. Polya 1931, in Annales Inst. Henri Poincaré 1 137). The effect whereby the probability of an event is affected by whether or not it, or a related event, has occurred before.
| 1938 Amer. Math. Monthly 45 410 The present paper was concerned especially with Pólya's ‘contagion in probability’. 1969 Jrnl. Royal Statist. Soc. (A.) 132 270 The basic idea for the formulation for new car demand is that consumers over-react with regard to desired car purchases. The main reason for this being the demonstration or contagion effect. 1986 Statistician 35 306 It can arise from a contagion model whereby the probability of sustaining an accident is originally the same for all individuals, but is altered so that the probability of an individual sustaining an accident increases linearly with the number of accidents he or she has already sustained. 1994 Statist. Sci. 9 94/2 The Matthew Effect—(a form of contagion—‘For unto every one that hath shall be given..: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.’). |