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legionella

legionella noun: bacteria of the genus Legionella.

legionella: bacteria of the genus Legionella
Image: CDC (PHIL #1187), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

legionella (countable and uncountable, plural legionellas or legionellae)

  1. Bacteria of the genus Legionella.
    • Thameslink Train Services Director Rob Mullen responded: "A very low level of legionella was found during testing in a small number of our Class 700 train toilets. While it is extremely unlikely this would cause any harm, the toilets were immediately locked out of use. The trains were taken out of...2021 September 8, “RMT strike threat over legionella on Thameslink trains”, in RAIL, number 939, page 18

Forms of legionella

plurallegionellas
plurallegionellae

Origin of legionella

From legion + translingual -ella, from Latin legio. Constructed from American Legion, after an outbreak of a then-unknown "mystery disease" (Legionnaires' disease) at a convention of the American Legion in Philadelphia in 1976.

Words formed from legionella

Questions about legionella

What does legionella mean?
Legionella means bacteria of the genus Legionella.
What part of speech is legionella?
Legionella is a noun.
What is the plural of legionella?
The plural of legionella is legionellas.

Words near legionella in the dictionary

  1. legionaries
  2. legionary
  3. legionary ant
  4. legionary ants
  5. legioned
  6. legionella
  7. legionellae
  8. legionellal
  9. legionellas
  10. legionelloses
  11. legionellosis

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: legionella (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: “legionella.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/legionella. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.