Poxviridae

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A family of large, complex, double-stranded DNA viruses known for causing diseases like smallpox and cowpox in humans and animals; these viruses replicate in the cytoplasm and have distinctive brick-shaped virions
2. A taxonomic group of enveloped viruses with large genomes that infect vertebrates, characterized by cytoplasmic replication and their role in significant infectious diseases including variola virus and other related pathogens
3. A classification of DNA viruses distinguished by their size, complex structure, and ability to cause systemic infections, often marked by skin lesions, affecting a range of hosts from humans to animals and replicating outside the nucleus in host cell cytoplasm

Etymology: Poxviridae takes its name from "pox," the English word for the pustular skin diseases such as smallpox and cowpox. "Pox" is itself a plural of "pock," an Old English word for a pustule or pimple, so the disease name is literally "pustules." The family suffix "-viridae" is the standard International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses ending for virus families, drawn from the Latin "virus," meaning poison or slime. The name is a modern scientific coinage, applied to the group of viruses once the viruses themselves were classified. Like the other virus family names, it was built from a familiar common word for the disease the viruses cause, combined with a Latinate ending that marks the rank of family in the taxonomic system.