Word.ws English Dictionary

protovirus

protovirus noun: a DNA sequence capable of mutating into an oncogenic virus, proposed as a hypothesis to explain the origin of ribodeoxyviruses as arising from normal cellular components.

Noun

protovirus (plural protoviruses)

  1. A DNA sequence capable of mutating into an oncogenic virus, proposed as a hypothesis to explain the origin of ribodeoxyviruses as arising from normal cellular components.

Forms of protovirus

pluralprotoviruses

Origin of protovirus

From proto- + virus.

Questions about protovirus

What does protovirus mean?
Protovirus means a DNA sequence capable of mutating into an oncogenic virus, proposed as a hypothesis to explain the origin of ribodeoxyviruses as arising from normal cellular components.
What part of speech is protovirus?
Protovirus is a noun.
What is the plural of protovirus?
The plural of protovirus is protoviruses.

Words near protovirus in the dictionary

  1. protovertebrae
  2. protovertebral
  3. protovertebrate
  4. protovertebrates
  5. protoviral
  6. protovirus
  7. protoviruses
  8. protoword
  9. protowords
  10. protowriting
  11. protoxid

Source and license

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