Contagious

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Contagious \Con*ta"gious\, a. [L. contagiosus: cf. F.
     contagieux.]
     1. (Med.) Communicable by contact, by a virus, or by a bodily
        exhalation; catching; as, a contagious disease.
        [1913 Webster]
  


     2. Conveying or generating disease; pestilential; poisonous;
        as, contagious air.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. Spreading or communicable from one to another; exciting
        similar emotions or conduct in others.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              His genius rendered his courage more contagious.
                                                    --Wirt.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              The spirit of imitation is contagious. --Ames.
  
     Syn: {Contagious}, {Infectious}.
  
     Usage: Although often used as synonyms, originally these
            words were used in very diverse senses; but, in
            general, a contagious disease has been considered as
            one which is caught from another by some near contact,
            by the breath, by bodily effluvia, etc.; while an
            infectious disease supposed some entirely different
            cause acting by a hidden influence, like the miasma of
            prison ships, of marshes, etc., infecting the system
            with disease. In either case, a pathogenic
            microorganism is the direct cause of the disease. This
            distinction, though not universally admitted by
            medical men, as to the literal meaning of the words,
            certainly applies to them in their figurative use.
            Thus we speak of the contagious influence of evil
            associates; their contagion of bad example, the
            contagion of fear, etc., when we refer to transmission
            by proximity or contact. On the other hand, we speak
            of infection by bad principles, etc., when we consider
            anything as diffused by some hidden influence.
            [1913 Webster +PJC]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  contagious
       adj 1: of or relating to communicable diseases; "by the road to the
              contagious hospital"
       2: easily diffused or spread as from one person to another; "a
          contagious grin"
       3: (of disease) capable of being transmitted by infection [syn:
           {catching}, {communicable}, {contractable}, {transmissible},
           {transmittable}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  57 Moby Thesaurus words for "contagious":
     assignable, catching, communicable, conductive, consignable,
     conveyable, deadly, destructive, endemic, envenomed, epidemial,
     epidemic, epiphytotic, epizootic, expressable, impartable,
     infectious, infective, inoculable, interchangeable, mailable,
     malign, malignant, mephitic, metathetic, miasmal, miasmatic,
     miasmic, movable, noxious, pandemic, pestiferous, pestilential,
     poisonous, portable, portative, removable, sporadic, spreading,
     taking, toxic, toxicant, toxiferous, transferable, transfusable,
     transmissible, transmissive, transmittable, transportable,
     transportative, transposable, venenate, veneniferous, venenous,
     venomous, virulent, zymotic