Viroses

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Infectious diseases caused by viruses that invade living organisms and disrupt normal biological functions
2. Illnesses originating from viral pathogens characterized by their ability to reproduce within host cells and trigger various symptoms
3. Medical conditions resulting from the activity of viruses which replicate inside the body and often lead to contagious disease states

Etymology: "Viroses" is the plural of "virosis," which is formed from "virus" plus the suffix "-osis." The suffix comes from Greek and is used in medicine to mean a diseased condition or abnormal state, as in "tuberculosis" or "neurosis." Put together, "virosis" names a disease caused by a virus, and the plural simply refers to several such diseases at once. The first half of the word is the more striking part. "Virus" comes from Latin, where it meant poison, venom or slimy liquid, and it kept that general sense in English for centuries before it came to mean the tiny infectious agents studied by microbiologists. The "-osis" ending adds a sense of illness or condition, so "virosis" is a modern medical coinage built from a classical base, rather than a term used in antiquity.

Synonyms: viral diseases, virus infections

Antonyms: bacterial infections, noninfectious diseases