spillover

Noun

spillover (countable and uncountable, plural spillovers)

1. That which overflows; the excess or side effect.
   • The spillover from the dam due to the heavy rains will run down this channel and harmlessly dump into that river, we hope.
   • The spillover from this war will be many little massacres of civilians by civilians.
2. The spread of infectious disease between different species of animal and particularly to humans.
   • We’re not establishing the kind of safe practices that will minimize the opportunity for spillover. If we better understood where these viruses are circulating and understood that ecology, we would have the potential to disrupt and minimize the risk of spillover.2020 March 12, Kevin Berger, “The Man Who Saw the Pandemic Coming”, in Nautilus, archived from the original on 15 Mar 2020