1.
[syn: infectious, infective]
2. easily spread;
- Example: "fear is exceedingly infectious children catch it from their elders"- Bertrand Russell;
3. of or relating to infection;
- Example: "infectious hospital"
- Example: "infectious disease"
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Infectious \In*fec"tious\, a. [Cf. F. infectieux.]
[1913 Webster]
1. Having qualities that may infect; communicable or caused
by infection; pestilential; epidemic; as, an infectious
fever; infectious clothing; infectious water; infectious
vices.
[1913 Webster]
Where the infectious pestilence. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
2. Corrupting, or tending to corrupt or contaminate;
vitiating; demoralizing.
[1913 Webster]
It [the court] is necessary for the polishing of
manners . . . but it is infectious even to the best
morals to live always in it. --Dryden.
[1913 Webster]
3. (Law) Contaminating with illegality; exposing to seizure
and forfeiture.
[1913 Webster]
Contraband articles are said to be of an infectious
nature. --Kent.
[1913 Webster]
4. Capable of being easily diffused or spread; sympathetic;
readily communicated; as, infectious mirth.
[1913 Webster]
The laughter was so genuine as to be infectious.
--W. Black.
Syn: See Contagious.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
infectious
adj 1: caused by infection or capable of causing infection;
"viruses and other infective agents"; "a carrier remains
infective without himself showing signs of the disease"
[syn: infectious, infective]
2: easily spread; "fear is exceedingly infectious; children
catch it from their elders"- Bertrand Russell [ant:
noninfectious]
3: of or relating to infection; "infectious hospital";
"infectious disease"
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
40 Moby Thesaurus words for "infectious":
catching, communicable, contagious, deadly, destructive, endemic,
envenomed, epidemial, epidemic, epiphytotic, epizootic, infective,
inoculable, irresistible, malign, malignant, mephitic, miasmal,
miasmatic, miasmic, noxious, pandemic, pestiferous, pestilent,
pestilential, poisonous, sporadic, spreading, sympathetic, taking,
toxic, toxicant, toxiferous, transmissible, venenate, veneniferous,
venenous, venomous, virulent, zymotic