Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use infectious in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective

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). Example: “Cancer is usually not infectious.”

Examples of infectious by meaning

adjectiveCaused by an agent that enters the host's body (such as a bacterium, virus, parasite, or prion); often, also...

  • Cancer is usually not infectious.
  • More infectious diseases like the flu are usually less potent.

adjectiveAble to infect others; capable of transmitting pathogens.

  • Despite feeling better, the patient is still infectious.

adjectiveSpreading quickly from one person to another.

  • Her enthusiasm for work can be really infectious.
  • When Maisie first met Danny, she remembers that he had an infectious laugh and a love for music.2024 November 20, Fortesa Latifi, “How These Men Left the Manosphere — and Why Some May Never”, in Teen Vogue

adjectiveMemorable and invoking excitement or interest.

  • Pop music is more infectious than elevator music.

More sentences with infectious

  • Infectious agents may spread by horizontal transmission.From the entry horizontal
  • It is a progressively destructive infectious disease of the body tissue, affecting skin, muscle and even bone.2025 April 26, Agence France-Presse, “Only global research unit on tropical skin disease becomes casualty of war”, in South China Morning…. From the entry mycetoma
  • Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus.2020 January 11, “Coronavirus”, in World Health Organization. From the entry covid-19
  • With smallpox gone, tuberculosis is today the deadliest infectious disease on the planet.2019, Bill Bryson, The Body: A Guide for Occupants, Black Swan (2020), page 380. From the entry tuberculosis
  • Each country may have a different prevalence of infectious abortive agents.2018 May, Carla Sebastiania, Ludovica Curcioa, Marcella Ciulloa, Deborah Crucianib, Silvia Crottib, Cristina Pescab, Martina Torricellia…. From the entry abortive
  • The eggs larvate and become infectious after 1 to 3 weeks.2016 December 19, Stephen J. Ettinger, Edward C. Feldman, Etienne Cote, Textbook of Veterinary Internal Medicine - eBook: Textbook of…. From the entry larvate
  • "This is a graph of the death rate from infectious disease in this country.2015 May 4, Randall Munroe, xkcd (webcomic), Degree-Off. From the entry slay
  • Children and elderly are more predisposed to infectious diseases because of the compromization of the immune system.2009, Larry Holmes, Jr., “Social and Behavioral Sciences in Public Health”, in Basics of Public Health Core Competencies, Jones and…. From the entry compromisation
  • Fomites play a significant role in the transmission of infectious agents.2009, Robert I. Krasner, The Microbial Challenge: Science, Disease and Public Health, page 166. From the entry fomites
  • We know there are unimmunized people out there, and measles is extremely infectious.2008 May 2, Denise Grady, “Measles in U.S. at Highest Level Since 2001”, in The New York Times. From the entry unimmunized
  • So infectious was Jamie’s trademark bish bash bosh enthusiasm that it may actually have been counterproductive.2007 August 8, Gerard O'Donovan, “Last night on television”, in telegraph.co.uk, retrieved 14 Oct 2008. From the entry bish bash bosh
  • He found that laughter enhanced the activity of certain immune system cells responsible for killing infectious pathogens.2005 October 1, Charmaine Liebertz, “A Healthy Laugh”, in John Rennie, editor, Scientific American, New York, N.Y.: Springer Nature…. From the entry gelotology
  • Idiopathic IBD also must be differentiated from infectious, ischemic, and radiation enterocolitides.1996 July, Richard M. Gore, Emil J. Balthazar, Gary G. Ghahremani, Frank H. Miller, “CT Features of Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn’s…. From the entry enterocolitis
  • For waste that is putrescible or may be infectious, on-site incineration is ideal.1995, “Prudent Practices in the Laboratory: Handling and Disposing of Chemicals”, in U.S, National Research Council, page 158. From the entry putrescible
  • The band's funky two-tone sound and infectious energy makes their music enjoyable and their lyrical messages accessible.1982 August 14, Mary Ann Peacott, Liz Nania, “BT's In Boston”, in Gay Community News, volume 10, number 5, page 12. From the entry two-tone
  • It was in a college, West Point, that infectious mononucleosis won a romantic reputation. . . .1961 February, “What in the world is Mononucleosis?”, in Kiplinger Magazine, retrieved 19 Oct 2010, page 30. From the entry kissing disease
  • The nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr.2020 May 20, Oliver Darcy, “Fauci conspicuously stops doing TV interviews as White House moves to reopen economy”, in CNN Business…. From the entry reopen
  • Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, think the return to travel will be gradual, with people easing their way back.2020 December 22, Tariro Mzezewa, “9 Ways the Pandemic Will Change Travel in 2021”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on…. From the entry vaxication
  • Most people do not transmit,” said Jamie Lloyd-Smith, another infectious disease specialist, sounding a bit like the statistics meme Spiders Georg.2020 June 3, Lissa Harris, Phillip Pantuso, Roger Hannigan Gilson, “Coronavirus Roundup: Superspreaders May Account for Most COVID-19…. From the entry Spiders Georg
  • The infectious eggs can survive in the environment for months and are the primary source of human infection.2016 December 19, Stephen J. Ettinger, Edward C. Feldman, Etienne Cote, Textbook of Veterinary Internal Medicine - eBook: Textbook of…. From the entry larvate
  • HCV infectious particles circulate in serum as lipoviroparticles.2016 January 6, “Hepatitis C Virus Increases Occludin Expression via the Upregulation of Adipose Differentiation-Related Protein”, in PLOS…. From the entry lipoviroparticles
  • Homer’s entrepreneurial spirit proves altogether overly infectious.2012 June 3, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Mr. Plow” (season 4, episode 9; originally aired 11/19/1992)”, in AV…. From the entry flier
  • Herd immunity is also viewed as the resistance a population has to the invasion and spread of an infectious disease.2010, Ray M. Merrill, “Practical Disease Concepts in Epidemiology”, in Introduction to Epidemiology, 5th edition, Sudbury, Mass.: Jones…. From the entry herd immunity
  • Wilding’s environment conveys an infectious unorthodoxy, a relief from the hierarchical rule of modernist aesthetics over previous decades.2008 February 15, Ken Johnson, “Striking When the Spirit Was Hot”, in New York Times. From the entry unorthodoxy
  • “We need to have uniform biosurveillance capability to prepare not only for a pandemic, but any outbreak of infectious disease.”2007 July 18, Gardiner Harris, “Limited Capacity Is Seen in Flu Defenses”, in New York Times. From the entry biosurveillance
  • Towelettes and waterless hand-washes are great items to carry with you for preventing the spread of infectious germs.2003, Bill Goodrich, Tom McCormick, Nursing Home Ministry: Where Hidden Treasures Are Found, Avon Lake, Oh.: God Cares Ministry, →ISBN…. From the entry hand-wash
  • Peritoneal fluid was commonly found in acute colitides, particularly pseudomembranous, infectious, and ischemic colitides, and not in chronic IBD.1996 July, Richard M. Gore, Emil J. Balthazar, Gary G. Ghahremani, Frank H. Miller, “CT Features of Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn’s…. From the entry colitis
  • His eyes twinkled, his laugh was uproaringly infectious.1994, Edith Mucke, Beginning in Triumph: A Memoir, St. Cloud, Minn.: North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc., →ISBN, page 98. From the entry uproaringly
  • The cold is both contagious and infectious.1941 February 17, Edgar Cayce, “Common Cold”, in Gladys Davis Turner, Mae Gimbert St. Clair, compilers, Individual Reference File of…. From the entry flushiness
  • We need f.e. a law to be able to separate an infectious phtisic from his family even against his own will.1903, Ferdinand Eugene Daniel, Medical Insurance: Devoted to the Insurance Examiner and Clinical Diagnostician, page 409. From the entry phtisic
  • The U.S. is notorious for spending oodles on health care, but health care has little to do with stopping the spread of infectious diseases.2021 June 25, Olga Khazan, “We’re Not Ready for Another Pandemic”, in Jeffrey Goldberg, editor, The Atlantic, Washington, D.C.: The…. From the entry notorious
  • The idea that our nose hairs, known medically as vibrissae, might offer protection against infectious germs goes back more than a century.2021 July 30, Richard Klasco, “Is Nose Hair Essential to Fighting Off Colds and Other Viral Illnesses?”, in The New York Times, New York…. From the entry nose hair
  • Abramson, a pediatric infectious disease expert at Wake Forest Medical School, has found no medical evidence to support feeding a cold and starving a fever.2016 September 16, Hailey Middlebrook, “Should you really feed a cold and starve a fever?”, in CNN. From the entry cold
  • The infectious meal was prepared with fresh washed bovine red cells, viral supernatant (1:2) and adenosine triphosphate at 5 mM as phagostimulant.2015 September 16, “Use of Centrifugal Filter Devices to Concentrate Dengue Virus in Mosquito per os Infection Experiments”, in PLOS ONE…. From the entry phagostimulant

Meaning of infectious

  1. 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).
  2. adjective Able to infect others; capable of transmitting pathogens.
  3. adjective Spreading quickly from one person to another.

Full definition of infectious

Questions about infectious in a sentence

How do you use infectious in a sentence?
Infectious is used as an adjective. For example: “Cancer is usually not infectious.”
What is a short sentence with infectious?
“Cancer is usually not 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).

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: infectious (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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