Infection

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: in=fec=tion

CIDE DICTIONARY

Infection, n. [Cf. F. infection, L. infectio a dyeing.].

•  The act or process of infecting.  [1913 Webster]

  "There was a strict order against coming to those pits, and that was only to prevent infection."  [1913 Webster]
•  That which infects, or causes the communicated disease; any effluvium, miasm, or pestilential matter by which an infectious disease is caused.  [1913 Webster]

  "And that which was still worse, they that did thus break out spread the infection further by their wandering about with the distemper upon them."  [1913 Webster]
•  The state of being infected; the condition of suffering from an infectious disease; contamination by morbific particles; the result of infecting influence; a prevailing disease; epidemic.  [1913 Webster]

  "The danger was really very great, the infection being so very violent in London."  [1913 Webster]
•  That which taints or corrupts morally; as, the infection of vicious principles.  [1913 Webster]

  "It was her chance to light
  Amidst the gross infections of those times."  [1913 Webster]
•  Contamination by illegality, as in cases of contraband goods; implication.  [1913 Webster]
•  Sympathetic communication of like qualities or emotions; influence.  [1913 Webster]

  "Through all her train the soft infection ran."  [1913 Webster]

  "Mankind are gay or serious by infection."
•  A localized area of tissue which is inflamed by growth of microorganisms; as, he has an infection in his finger.  [PJC]

Syn. -- Infection, Contagion.

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Infection, n.
1 a the process of infecting or state of being infected. b an instance of this; an infectious disease.
2 communication of disease, esp. by the agency of air or water etc.
3 a moral contamination. b the diffusive influence of example, sympathy, etc.

Etymology

ME f. OF infection or LL infectio (as INFECT)

THESAURUS

Infection

abomination, adulteration, aerial infection, afflatus, airborne infection, animating spirit, animation, animus, atrocity, bad, bane, befouling, befoulment, besmirchment, blight, carrier, communicability, contagion, contagiousness, contamination, corruption, crying evil, cryptogenic infection, damage, defilement, despoliation, destruction, detriment, direct infection, dirtying, divine afflatus, droplet infection, dust infection, enlivenment, envenoming, epidemiology, evil, exhilaration, festering, fire, firing, fouling, genius, grievance, hand infection, harm, havoc, hurt, ill, indirect infection, infectiousness, infusion, injury, inspiration, mischief, misuse, moving spirit, outrage, perversion, phytogenic infection, poison, poisoning, pollution, primary infection, prostitution, pyogenic infection, ritual uncleanness, secondary infection, soiling, subclinical infection, suppuration, taint, the worst, toxin, vector, venom, vexation, virus, vitiation, waterborne infection, woe, wrong, zoogenic infection

ROGET THESAURUS

Infection

Disease

N disease, illness, sickness, ailing, all the ills that flesh is heir to, morbidity, morbosity, infirmity, ailment, indisposition, complaint, disorder, malady, distemper, distemperature, visitation, attack, seizure, stroke, fit, delicacy, loss of health, invalidation, cachexy, cachexia, atrophy, marasmus, indigestion, dyspepsia, decay, decline, consumption, palsy, paralysis, prostration, taint, pollution, infection, sepsis, septicity, infestation, epidemic, pandemic, endemic, epizootic, murrain, plague, pestilence, pox, sore, ulcer, abscess, fester, boil, pimple, wen, carbuncle, gathering, imposthume, peccant humor, issue, rot, canker, cold sore, fever sore, cancer, carcinoma, leukemia, neoplastic disease, malignancy, tumor, caries, mortification, corruption, gangrene, sphacelus, sphacelation, leprosy, eruption, rash, breaking out, fever, temperature, calenture, inflammation, ague, angina pectoris, appendicitis, Asiatic cholera, spasmodic cholera, biliary calculus, kidney stone, black death, bubonic plague, pneumonic plague, blennorrhagia, blennorrhoea, blood poisoning, bloodstroke, bloody flux, brash, breakbone fever, dengue fever, malarial fever, Q-fever, heart attack, cardiac arrest, cardiomyopathy, hardening of the arteries, arteriosclerosis, atherosclerosis, bronchocele, canker rash, cardialgia, carditis, endocarditis, cholera, asphyxia, chlorosis, chorea, cynanche, dartre, enanthem, enanthema, erysipelas, exanthem, exanthema, gallstone, goiter, gonorrhea, green sickness, grip, grippe, influenza, flu, hay fever, heartburn, heaves, rupture, hernia, hemorrhoids, piles, herpes, itch, king's evil, lockjaw, measles, mumps, polio, necrosis, pertussis, phthisis, pneumonia, psora, pyaemia, pyrosis, quinsy, rachitis, ringworm, rubeola, St. Vitus's dance, scabies, scarlatina, scarlet fever, scrofula, seasickness, struma, syntexis, tetanus, tetter, tonsillitis, tonsilitis, tracheocele, trachoma, trismus, varicella, varicosis, variola, water qualm, whooping cough, yellow fever, yellow jack, fatal disease, dangerous illness, galloping consumption, churchyard cough, general breaking up, break up of the system, idiocy insanity, martyr to disease, cripple, the halt the lame and the blind, valetudinary, valetudinarian, invalid, patient, case, sickroom, sick- chamber, pathology, etiology, nosology, anthrax, bighead, blackleg, blackquarter, cattle plague, glanders, mange, scrapie, milk sickness, heartworm, feline leukemia, roundworms, quarter-evil, quarter-ill, rinderpest, virus, bacterium, bacteria, DNA virus, RNA virus, rhinovirus, rhabdovirus, picornavirus, herpesvirus, cytomegalovirus, CMV, human immunodefficiency virus, HIV, diseased, ailing, ill, ill of, taken ill, seized with, indisposed, unwell, sick, squeamish, poorly, seedy, affected with illness, afflicted with illness, laid up, confined, bedridden, invalided, in hospital, on the sick list, out of health, out of sorts, under the weather, valetudinary, unsound, unhealthy, sickly, morbid, morbose, healthless, infirm, chlorotic, unbraced, drooping, flagging, lame, crippled, halting, morbid, tainted, vitiated, peccant, contaminated, poisoned, tabid, mangy, leprous, cankered, rotten, rotten to the core, rotten at the core, withered, palsied, paralytic, dyspeptic, luetic, pneumonic, pulmonic, phthisic, rachitic, syntectic, syntectical, tabetic, varicose, touched in the wind, broken-winded, spavined, gasping, hors de combat, weakly, weakened, decrepit, decayed, incurable, in declining health, cranky, in a bad way, in danger, prostrate, moribund, morbific epidemic, endemic, zymotic.

Excitation

N excitation of feeling, mental excitement, suscitation, galvanism, stimulation, piquance, piquancy, provocation, inspiration, calling forth, infection, animation, agitation, perturbation, subjugation, fascination, intoxication, enravishment, entrancement, pressure, tension, high pressure, unction, impressiveness, trail of temper, casus belli, irritation, passion, thrill, repression of feeling, sensationalism, yellow journalism, excited, wrought up, up the qui vive, astir, sparkling, in a quiver, in a fever, in a ferment, in a blaze, in a state of excitement, in hysterics, black in the face, overwrought, tense, taught, on a razor's edge, hot, red-hot, flushed, feverish, all of a twitter, in a pucker, with quivering lips, with tears in one's eyes, flaming, boiling over, ebullient, seething, foaming at the mouth, fuming, raging, carried away by passion, wild, raving, frantic, mad, distracted, beside oneself, out of one's wits, ready to burst, bouleverse, demoniacal, lost, eperdu, tempest-tossed, haggard, ready to sink, stung to the quick, up, on one's high ropes, exciting, absorbing, riveting, distracting, impressive, warm, glowing, fervid, swelling, imposing, spirit-stirring, thrilling, high-wrought, soul-stirring, soul-subduing, heart-stirring, heart- swelling, heart-thrilling, agonizing, telling, sensational, hysterical, overpowering, overwhelming, more than flesh and blood can bear, yellow, piquant, spicy, appetizing, provocative, provoquant, tantalizing, eager to go, anxious to go, chafing at the bit, till one is black in the face, the heart beating high, the heart going pitapat, the heart leaping into one's mouth, the blood being up, the blood boiling in one's veins, the eye glistening, the eyes in a fine frenzy rolling, the head turned, when the going gets tough, the tough get going.