| / English Dictionary |
VIRULENT
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Infectious; having the ability to cause disease
Classified under:
Similar:
highly infective ((of a microorganism) extremely infective)
deadly ((of a disease) having a rapid course and violent effect)
Antonym:
avirulent (not virulent; unable to produce disease)
Derivation:
virulence; virulency (extreme harmfulness (as the capacity of a microorganism to cause disease))
Sense 2
Meaning:
Harsh or corrosive in tone
Example:
a vitriolic critique
Synonyms:
acerb; acerbic; acid; acrid; bitter; blistering; caustic; sulfurous; sulphurous; virulent; vitriolic
Classified under:
Similar:
unpleasant (offensive or disagreeable; causing discomfort or unhappiness)
Derivation:
virulence; virulency (extreme hostility)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Extremely poisonous or injurious; producing venom
Example:
a virulent insect bite
Synonyms:
deadly; venomous; virulent
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
toxic (of or relating to or caused by a toxin or poison)
Derivation:
virulence (extreme harmfulness (as the capacity of a microorganism to cause disease))
Context examples:
E. coli O26 was isolated from livestock and is a highly virulent serotype causing diarrhea and hemolytic uremic syndrome with multiple complications in humans.
(Escherichia coli strain O26, NCI Thesaurus)
If you ask me now, after fifty years, why it was that there should have been this virulent feeling against them, so foreign to the easy-going and tolerant British nature, I would confess that I think the real reason was fear.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The NIAID researchers and their colleagues hypothesized that administration of BCG by IV or aerosol (AE) routes would overcome this hurdle and thus confer substantially better protection from infection and/or disease in rhesus macaques following challenge with virulent Mtb.
(Changed route of immunization dramatically improves efficacy of TB vaccine, National Institutes of Health)
Six months after vaccination, the researchers exposed groups of vaccinated rhesus macaques (immunized via ID, AE or IV routes) and a group of unvaccinated macaques to a virulent strain of Mtb by introducing the bacteria directly into the animals’ lungs.
(Changed route of immunization dramatically improves efficacy of TB vaccine, National Institutes of Health)
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