picornavirus
Meanings
noun
- Any of the family Picornaviridae of RNA viruses, many of which are pathogenic, causing diseases such as polio, foot-and-mouth disease, and many varieties of the common cold.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
The name "picornavirus" has a dual etymology. Firstly, the name derives from picorna- which is an acronym for "poliovirus, insensitivity to ether, coxsackievirus, orphan virus, rhinovirus, and ribonucleic acid". Secondly, the name derives from pico-, which designates a very small unit of measurement (equivalent to 10⁻¹²), combined with rna to describe this group of very small RNA viruses.; pico- + RNA + virus
Derived words
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.