virus

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a software program capable of reproducing itself and usually capable of causing great harm to files or other programs on the same computer

   a true virus cannot spread to another computer without human assistance

2. 2
   noun

   a harmful or corrupting agency

   bigotry is a virus that must not be allowed to spread

3. 3
   noun

   A submicroscopic, non-cellular structure that consists of a core of DNA or RNA surrounded by a protein coat, that requires a living host cell to replicate, and that sometimes causes disease in the host organism (such agents are often classed as nonliving infectious particles and less often as microorganisms).

   Viruses are the smallest and most simplified forms of life.

4. 4
   noun

   A quantity of such infectious agents, considered en masse.

   Not much virus was detectable on a nucleic acid test; the viral load was very low.

5. 5
   noun

   A disease caused by such an infectious agent; a viral illness.

   He's got a virus and had to stay home from school.

6. 6
   noun

   Venom, as produced by a poisonous animal etc.

   Brazil, that inferno where every budding flower and every buzzing bluebottle fly bears a lascivious virus.

7. 7
   noun

   A type of malware which can covertly transmit itself between computers via networks (especially the Internet) or removable storage such as disks, often causing damage to systems and data; also computer virus.

   Wait a minute! Is this one of those virus emails?!

8. 8
   noun

   Any malicious or dangerous entity that spreads from one place or person to another.

   I am tired of the mind viruses that are crippling people living in the western world — especially in my own nation. Sadly, Australia is becoming known as a nation of whingers.

Etymology

From Middle English virus, from Latin vīrus (“poison, slime, venom”), via rhotacism from Proto-Italic *weizos, from Proto-Indo-European *wisós (“fluidity, slime, poison”). First use in the computer context by David Gerrold in his 1972 book When HARLIE Was One.