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VIRULENCE
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Extreme hostility
Example:
the virulence of the malicious old man
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("virulence" is a kind of...):
hostility; ill will (a hostile (very unfriendly) disposition)
Derivation:
virulent (harsh or corrosive in tone)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Extreme harmfulness (as the capacity of a microorganism to cause disease)
Example:
the virulence of the plague
Synonyms:
virulence; virulency
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("virulence" is a kind of...):
harmfulness; injuriousness (destructiveness that causes harm or injury)
Domain category:
micro-organism; microorganism (any organism of microscopic size)
Derivation:
virulent (infectious; having the ability to cause disease)
virulent (extremely poisonous or injurious; producing venom)
Context examples:
When the typhus fever had fulfilled its mission of devastation at Lowood, it gradually disappeared from thence; but not till its virulence and the number of its victims had drawn public attention on the school.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
A lyophilized preparation of a low-virulence strain (SU) of Streptococcus pyogenes (S. hemolyticus), inactivated by heating with penicillin G. It has been proposed as a noncytotoxic antineoplastic agent because of its immune system-stimulating activity.
(Picibanil, NLM, Medical Subject Headings)
And the lock of hair—that too I had always carried about me in the same pocket-book, which was now searched by Madam with the most ingratiating virulence,—the dear lock—all, every memento was torn from me.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
