English Explanatory Dictionary

virulent

English dictionary entry

Meanings

adj
  1. Of animals, plants, or substances: extremely venomous or poisonous.
  2. Extremely hostile or malicious; intensely acrimonious.
  3. Of a disease or disease-causing agent: malignant, able to cause damage to the host.
  4. Of a pathogen: replicating within its host cell, then immediately causing it to undergo lysis.

Pronunciation

/ˈvɪɹ(j)ʊl(ə)nt/ /-ɹ(j)ə-/ LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-virulent.wav /ˈvɪɹ(j)ələnt/

Word forms

virulent more virulent most virulent

Etymology

PIE word *wisós From Middle English virulent (“leaking or seeping pus, purulent; (of putrefaction) extremely severe (sense uncertain)”) [and other forms], borrowed from Latin vīrulentus (“poisonous”), from vīrus (“poison; venom; slime, slimy liquid; stinking smell; nasty taste”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *wisós (“poison; slime; fluidity”)) + -ulentus (suffix meaning ‘abounding in, full of’, forming adjectives). Sense 4 (“of a pathogen: replicating within its host cell, then immediately causing it to undergo lysis”) is derived from French virulent, which was first used in this sense by the French biologist François Jacob (1920–2013) and his co-authors in a 1953 article.

Antonyms

harmless nonvirulent benign

Related words

virulence virulency virus pathogenic

Derived words

avirulent cardiovirulent enterovirulent hepatovirulent hypervirulent hypovirulent neurovirulent nonvirulent supervirulent urovirulent virulently virulentness
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