virulent
/ˈvɪɹ(j)ələnt/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.88 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
3
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
adj
Of a pathogen: replicating within its host cell, then immediately causing it to undergo lysis.
Example Sentences
- "The politicians were virulent in their hatred of the president."
- "More venemous and much more virulent / Then any poyſoned tode, or any ſerpent."
- "It was a casual sneer, obviously one of a long line. There was hatred behind it, but of a quiet, chronic type, nothing new or unduly virulent, and he was taken aback by the flicker of amazed incredulity that passed over the younger man's ravaged face."
- "They were targeted by a virulent strain of nativism toward those from Southern and Eastern Europe that was largely about race."
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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: virulent, vīrulentus, *wisós
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈvɪɹ(j)ələnt/
- British English: /ˈvɪɹ(j)ʊl(ə)nt/
Inflected Forms
more virulent (comparative)
most virulent (superlative)