Virosis

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A medical condition caused by the infection of the body by viruses that leads to various health complications
2. An illness resulting from viral agents affecting organism function and causing diverse clinical manifestations
3. A disease produced in the body when infected by viruses that disrupt normal health

Etymology: Virosis is a plain technical coinage: it joins "virus" with the suffix "-osis," a Greek-derived ending that medicine uses for a diseased or abnormal condition, as in "tuberculosis" or "psychosis." "Virus" itself came into English from Latin, where it meant poison or venom, and only later was extended to the infectious agents we now call viruses. Put together, the term names a condition produced by a virus, in the same way that "-osis" words name conditions produced by other causes. Because the word is built from parts that already existed, its meaning is transparent: it describes disease caused by viral infection rather than a particular named illness. Its use is largely confined to medical and scientific writing, where it serves as a general label rather than the name of a single disorder.

Synonyms: viral infection