bacillus
/bæˈsɪl.əs/
bacillus noun: any of various rod-shaped, spore-forming aerobic bacteria in the genus Bacillus, some of which cause disease.

Noun
bacillus (plural bacilli)
- Any of various rod-shaped, spore-forming aerobic bacteria in the genus Bacillus, some of which cause disease.
- 'This again,' said the Bacteriologist, slipping a glass slide under the microscope, 'is a preparation of the celebrated Bacillus of cholera - the cholera germ.'1895, H. G. Wells, The Stolen Bacillus
- "You will conceive a bunch of grapes," said he, "which are covered by some infinitesimal but noxious bacillus.1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “(please specify the page)”, in The Poison Belt […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC
- Any bacilliform (rod-shaped) bacterium.
- Something which spreads like bacterial infection.
- The “bacillus of boom or depression,” he wrote, travels freely “from country to country.”1934 [2018], Gottfried Haberler quoted in Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 71
bacillus meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam and Gujarati
bacillus in Hindi
- any bacteria in the genus Bacillus
- बैसिलस baisilas, दण्डाणु daṇḍāṇu
bacillus in Tamil
- கோலுருக்கிருமி, பசிலசு, கோலலுருக்கிருமி, நீளநுண்ணுயிர், குச்சி நுண்மம், கோல் நுண்மம்
bacillus in Malayalam
- കീടാണു
bacillus in Gujarati
- any bacteria in the genus Bacillus
- દંડાણુ daṇḍāṇu
More languagesFewer languages
- bacillus in Tagalog
- habishay
- bacillus in Arabic
- عَصَوِيَّة ʕaṣawiyya
- bacillus in Persian
- باسیلوس bâsilus
- bacillus in Thai
- บาซิลลัส baasinlát
- bacillus in Vietnamese
- trực khuẩn
- bacillus in Myanmar
- ဗက်တီးရီးယားပိုး bakti:ri:ya:pui:
Examples of bacillus in a sentence
- The typhoid bacillus and cholera bacterium are semiparasitic.
- Fusobacteria are fusiform bacilli (spindled rods).
- Ingestion of the bacillus results in intestinal infection and eventual bacillemia.
Forms of bacillus
| plural | bacilli |
|---|
Origin of bacillus
Learned borrowing from Latin bacillus (“little staff, wand”), diminutive of baculum (“stick, staff, walking stick”).
Words formed from bacillus
Questions about bacillus
- What does bacillus mean?
- Bacillus means any of various rod-shaped, spore-forming aerobic bacteria in the genus Bacillus, some of which cause disease.
- What is bacillus in Hindi?
- Bacillus in Hindi is बैसिलस (baisilas), दण्डाणु (daṇḍāṇu). See Bacillus meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is bacillus?
- Bacillus is a noun.
- How do you pronounce bacillus?
- Bacillus is pronounced /bæˈsɪl.əs/.
- What is the plural of bacillus?
- The plural of bacillus is bacilli.
Words near bacillus in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: bacillus (page history and authors); bacillus (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); bacillus (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vininn126-bacillus.wav.
Cite this entry: “bacillus.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bacillus. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
