Word.ws English Dictionary

infectuous

infectuous is the obsolete form of infectious.

Meaning of infectious

Adjective

infectious (comparative more infectious, superlative most infectious)

  1. 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.
  2. (typically of a person) Able to infect others; capable of transmitting pathogens.
    • Despite feeling better, the patient is still infectious.
  3. Spreading quickly from one person to another.
    • infectious smile
  4. (informal) Memorable and invoking excitement or interest.
    • Pop music is more infectious than elevator music.

Forms of infectuous

comparativemore infectuous
superlativemost infectuous

Questions about infectuous

What is infectuous the obsolete form of?
Infectuous is the obsolete form of infectious.

Words near infectuous in the dictionary

  1. infector
  2. infectors
  3. infectress
  4. infectresses
  5. infects
  6. infectuous
  7. infecund
  8. infecundability
  9. infecundable
  10. infecundities
  11. infecundity

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: infectuous (page history and authors); infectious (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.

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