INFECTIOUS • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Infectious

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/ɪnfˈɛkʃəs/ Listen

adjective

Infectious adj.

Having qualities that may infect; communicable or caused by infection; pestilential; epidemic; as, an infectious fever; infectious clothing; infectious water; infectious vices. "Where the infectious pestilence."

Corrupting, or tending to corrupt or contaminate; vitiating; demoralizing. "It (the court) is necessary for the polishing of manners... but it is infectious even to the best morals to live always in it."

(Law) Contaminating with illegality; exposing to seizure and forfeiture. "Contraband articles are said to be of an infectious nature."

Capable of being easily diffused or spread; sympathetic; readily communicated; as, infectious mirth. "The laughter was so genuine as to be infectious."

Synonyms: See Contagious.

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Etymology of 'Infectious'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Infectious" Quotes from Famous Books

... particles which contain animalcula, or their ova, and exist at different distances in layers, and which as they are developed and become heavier have a tendency to fall into lower regions of the atmosphere, till they awaken into life under the influence of the sun. Blights, called by us Viscotae, "infectious visitors," are often thus generated, falling from layer to layer till they ...

— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)

... already referred to, of which I have personal knowledge, 'raving' was very general, hardly anyone being free from it. Any fresh student would soon fall a victim to the fashion, which rather points to the fact that it is infectious. Sometimes there might be a lull in the general raving, only to reappear after an interval in more or less of an epidemic form. Sometimes nearly all the 'raves' were felt by students for their teachers; at other times it was more apparent ...

— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... nothing had been done and that there was no sign of anything being done. Hope was his watchword, and so hopefully did he speak of the future that the collegiate Gothic quadrangles began to rise in the imaginations of the company as dreams almost accomplished, and so infectious was his confidence that his hearers caught the high pitch of his enthusiasm, and when he had finished Boller sprang to a chair, and, waving a coffee-cup, struck the first deep tones of "Here's to old McGraw, drink her down!" and everybody joined in as fervently ...

— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... fellows that extend all over the body and putrefy it. We nourish within ourselves microbes which secrete very virulent poisons, and when those poisons are too much for us- -well, we grow old. At least that is the theory of Metchnikoff, who says that old age is an infectious chronic, disease. Somehow," he added thoughtfully, "that beautiful white kitchen in the Pitts home had really become a factory for ...

— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve

... difference of opinion. Those to whom the names of this volume recall some of the happiest hours they have spent in literary study will be grateful to Mr. Lumb for helping others to share the pleasures which they have so richly enjoyed; he writes with an enthusiasm which is infectious, and those to whom his book comes as a first introduction to the great writers of Greece will be moved to try to learn more of men whose works after so many centuries inspire so genuine an affection and teach lessons so modern. They need have no fear ...

— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb

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