Word.ws English Dictionary

superspreading

superspreading noun: the spreading of an infection to many other people from a single individual.

Noun

superspreading (uncountable)

  1. The spreading of an infection to many other people from a single individual.
    • Our findings indicate that superspreading is a normal feature of disease spread[…]2005 November 17, J. O. Llloyd-Smith et al., “Superspreading and the effect of individual variation on disease emergence”, in Nature, volume 438, →DOI, pages 355–359
    • We found that superspreading has overwhelmingly contributed to the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the city overall. Of the 349 local cases we identified — the remaining 689 cases were imported from other territories — 196 were linked to just six superspreading events.2020 June 2, Dillon C. Adam, Benjamin J. Cowling, “Just Stop the Superspreading”, in New York Times
  2. Synonym of superwetting.
    Synonyms:
    superwetting

Synonyms of superspreading

Origin of superspreading

From super- + spreading.

Questions about superspreading

What does superspreading mean?
Superspreading means the spreading of an infection to many other people from a single individual.
What part of speech is superspreading?
Superspreading is a noun.

Words near superspreading in the dictionary

  1. superspooks
  2. supersport
  3. superspread
  4. superspreader
  5. superspreaders
  6. superspreading
  7. superspreads
  8. superspready
  9. superspy
  10. supersquare
  11. supersquares

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: superspreading (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-superspreading.wav.

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