virulent

Meanings

Adjective Satellite

extremely poisonous or injurious; producing venom
- "a virulent insect bite"
harsh or corrosive in tone

Adjective

infectious; having the ability to cause disease

Adj

Of animals, plants, or substances: extremely venomous or poisonous.
Extremely hostile or malicious; intensely acrimonious.
Of a disease or disease-causing agent: malignant, able to cause damage to the host.
Of a pathogen: replicating within its host cell, then immediately causing it to undergo lysis.

Origin / Etymology

PIE word
*wisós
From Middle English virulent (“leaking or seeping pus, purulent; (of putrefaction) extremely severe (sense uncertain)”) [and other forms], borrowed from Latin vīrulentus (“poisonous”), from vīrus (“poison; venom; slime, slimy liquid; stinking smell; nasty taste”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *wisós (“poison; slime; fluidity”)) + -ulentus (suffix meaning ‘abounding in, full of’, forming adjectives).
Sense 4 (“of a pathogen: replicating within its host cell, then immediately causing it to undergo lysis”) is derived from French virulent, which was first used in this sense by the French biologist François Jacob (1920–2013) and his co-authors in a 1953 article.

Synonyms

acerb, acerbic, acid, acrid, bitter, blistering, caustic, deadly, sulfurous, sulphurous, venomous, vitriolic

Antonyms

avirulent, benign, harmless, nonvirulent

Scrabble Score: 11

virulent is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL word
virulent is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
virulent is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary

Words With Friends Score: 15

virulent is a valid Words With Friends word