infectious
UK/ɪnˈfɛk.ʃəs/
infectious adjective: caused by an agent that enters the host's body (such as a bacterium, virus, parasite, or prion); often, also, transmitted among hosts via any of various routes (for example, contact, droplet-borne, airborne, waterborne, foodborne, fomite-borne, or bloodborne).
Adjective
infectious (comparative more infectious, superlative most infectious)
- Caused by an agent that enters the host's body (such as a bacterium, virus, parasite, or prion); often, also, transmitted among hosts via any of various routes (for example, contact, droplet-borne, airborne, waterborne, foodborne, fomite-borne, or bloodborne).
- Cancer is usually not infectious.
- More infectious diseases like the flu are usually less potent.
- Able to infect others; capable of transmitting pathogens.
- Despite feeling better, the patient is still infectious.
- I doubt that [saliva] is very infectious ... I don't think this is a normal route of transmission.1981 December 1, Sue Hyde, quoting Paul Black, “AIDS Update: Little To Cheer About”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 20, page 3
- Spreading quickly from one person to another.
- infectious smile
- Her enthusiasm for work can be really infectious.
- Memorable and invoking excitement or interest.
- Pop music is more infectious than elevator music.
infectious meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
infectious in Hindi
- transmitted between persons as illness
- संक्रामक saṅkrāmak
infectious in Tamil
- தொற்றும்
infectious in Marathi
- संसर्गजन्य
infectious in Urdu
- چھوت کا, مفسد, وبائی
More languagesFewer languages
- infectious in Bengali
- সংক্রামক śoṅkramok, ছোঁয়াচে chō̃ẇace
- infectious in Malayalam
- സാംക്രമിക, സാംക്രമികമായ, ഔപസർഗ്ഗിക, പകരുന്ന
- infectious in Kannada
- ಸೋಂಕಿನ, ಸಾಂಕ್ರಾಮಿಕ, ಅಂಟುಜಾಡ್ಯದ, ಹಬ್ಬಿಸುವ
- infectious in Punjabi
- ਸੰਕ੍ਰਾਮਕ, ਸੰਕਰਮਣਸ਼ੀਲ
- infectious in Gujarati
- ચેપી
- infectious in Odia
- ସଂକ୍ରାମକ
- infectious in Nepali
- सङ्क्रामक, संक्रामक
- infectious in Tagalog
- nakahahawa
- infectious in Arabic
- مُعْدٍ muʕdin
- infectious in Malay
- berjangkit
- infectious in Indonesian
- infeksius, menular, viral
Examples of infectious in a sentence
- Infectious agents may spread by horizontal transmission.
- It is a progressively destructive infectious disease of the body tissue, affecting skin, muscle and even bone.
- Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus.
Antonyms of infectious
Forms of infectious
| comparative | more infectious |
|---|---|
| superlative | most infectious |
Origin of infectious
Borrowed from New Latin īnfectiōsus. By surface analysis, infect + -ious.
Words formed from infectious
- agroinfectious
- antiinfectious
- bovine infectious petechial fever
- feline infectious peritonitis
- hyperinfectious
- infection
- infectious abortion
- infectious agent
- infectious bovine rhinotracheitis
- infectious disease
- infectious disease specialist
- infectiously
- infectious mononucleosis
- infectiousness
- neuroinfectious
- parainfectious
- postinfectious
- preinfectious
- pseudoinfectious
- reinfectious
- subinfectious
- superinfectious
- toxicoinfectious
- uninfectious
Phrases with infectious
Questions about infectious
- What does infectious mean?
- Infectious means caused by an agent that enters the host's body (such as a bacterium, virus, parasite, or prion); often, also, transmitted among hosts via any of various routes (for example, contact, droplet-borne, airborne, waterborne, foodborne, fomite-borne, or bloodborne).
- What is infectious in Hindi?
- Infectious in Hindi is संक्रामक (saṅkrāmak). See Infectious meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is infectious?
- Infectious is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce infectious?
- Infectious is pronounced /ɪnˈfɛk.ʃəs/ (UK).
Words near infectious in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: infectious (page history and authors); infectious (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); infectious (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); infectious (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); infectious (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); infectious (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); infectious (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); infectious (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); infectious (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); infectious (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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)-Ajshul-infectious.wav.
Cite this entry: “infectious.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/infectious. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.