Fomite

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An inanimate object, such as a doorknob or cloth, that can harbor and transmit disease-causing microorganisms to people
2. A non-living item that may carry pathogens from one person to another and so spread infection
3. Any surface or article capable of holding germs and passing them on to a new host, causing illness indirectly

Etymology: The word "fomite" is a back-formation, meaning it was created by reading an existing word as if it were a plural and then deriving a new singular from it. The original is "fomites," the plural of Latin "fomes," which medical Latin borrowed in the sense of "tinder" or "kindling," the dry material that catches a spark. Early writers used the Latin plural as if it were a regular English noun, and from that a singular was back-formed. The figurative sense comes from fire. Tinder is what lets a small spark grow into a blaze, and physicians applied that picture to infection: an object that carries disease from one person to another was like a bit of kindling that spreads a fire from house to house. An object that carries an infectious agent without being alive itself is therefore a fomite, the name fitting the image of a spark passed along by something that burns easily.

Synonyms: carrier, vector