Contagion

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /kənˈteɪd͡ʒən/

Definitions

1. The spread of disease, emotion, or influence from one person or entity to others through direct or indirect contact
2. The transmission of disease, feeling, or influence from one individual to another through contact or proximity
3. The process by which illness, sentiment, or behavioral patterns propagate from affected persons to susceptible ones through exposure

Etymology: Before it named a sickness, "contagion" simply meant contact. The Latin "contāgiō" meant "a touching" or "contact," and it grew from "contingō," "touch closely," built from "con-" (together) and "tangō" (touch). The same root gave English "contact" and "contiguous," so "contagion" and "contact" are close cousins that took different paths. The word reached English in the late 14th century through Old French, and for a long time it kept that physical sense of touching. Its shift toward disease came as people came to understand that illness could pass from body to body by touch, so the word that described contact came to describe the thing that travelled along it. The modern extension to emotions and influence, as in a contagion of panic or laughter, follows the same logic: something passes from one person to another through close contact, whether that contact carries a microbe or a mood.

Synonyms: infection, disease, contamination, virus, pathogen

Antonyms: immunity, health, purity, safety, protection