Word.ws English Dictionary

patient zeroes

patient zeroes is the plural of patient zero.

Meaning of patient zero

Noun

patient zero (plural patient zeros or patient zeroes or patients zero)

  1. The initial patient in the population of an epidemiological investigation.
    • When epidemiologists trace the evolution of a disease, they look for the first individual known to have contracted it, who is given the inglorious label "Patient Zero". For example, the official Patient Zero for the AIDS epidemic was a South African man who died in 1959 (though it is suspected that...2005, John De Graaf, David Wann, Thomas H. Naylor, Redefining Progress, Affluenza: the all-consuming epidemic, 2nd illustrated edition, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, →ISBN, page 128
    Synonyms:
    index patient
  2. (figuratively, informal) The source or origin of something.
    • Danny Boyle, patient zero of the zombie revival, reviews The Walking Dead.2013 April 20, “Populist: Items of interest this week”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 10 Oct 2014

Questions about patient zeroes

What is patient zeroes the plural of?
Patient zeroes is the plural of patient zero.

Words near patient zeroes in the dictionary

  1. patient dumping
  2. patient information leaflet
  3. patient information leaflets
  4. patient under investigation
  5. patient zero
  6. patient zeroes
  7. patient zeros
  8. patientcare
  9. patienter
  10. patientest
  11. patienthood

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: patient zeroes (page history and authors); patient zero (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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