Word.ws English Dictionary

human immunodeficiency virus

human immunodeficiency virus noun: either of the two species of retroviruses that infect cells in the human immune system and can potentially lead to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).

Noun

human immunodeficiency virus (plural human immunodeficiency viruses)

  1. Either of the two species of retroviruses that infect cells in the human immune system and can potentially lead to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).
    Synonyms:
    HIV, AIDS virus, HIV virus, house in Virginia, human T-lymphotropic virus III, HTLV-III, lymphadenopathy-associated virus, LAV

Synonyms of human immunodeficiency virus

All synonyms of human immunodeficiency virus

Forms of human immunodeficiency virus

pluralhuman immunodeficiency viruses
alternative formhuman immune deficiency virus

Origin of human immunodeficiency virus

The name was first proposed by a subcommittee of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses on 1 May 1986 in the Nature journal (as human immunodeficiency virus, along with its initialism HIV), in an effort to establish an internationally acceptable name to replace “the multiplicity of names currently in use”. However, the term is first attested on 11 April 1986 in the Capital Gay newspaper (as human immune deficiency virus).

Questions about human immunodeficiency virus

What does human immunodeficiency virus mean?
Human immunodeficiency virus means either of the two species of retroviruses that infect cells in the human immune system and can potentially lead to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).
What part of speech is human immunodeficiency virus?
Human immunodeficiency virus is a noun.
What is the plural of human immunodeficiency virus?
The plural of human immunodeficiency virus is human immunodeficiency viruses.

Words near human immunodeficiency virus in the dictionary

  1. human geographers
  2. human geography
  3. human hand
  4. human immune deficiency virus
  5. human immune deficiency viruses
  6. human immunodeficiency virus
  7. human immunodeficiency virus 1
  8. human immunodeficiency virus 2
  9. human immunodeficiency viruses
  10. human insulin
  11. human insulins

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: human immunodeficiency virus (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:

Cite this entry: “human immunodeficiency virus.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/human_immunodeficiency_virus. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.