Link Centre Dictionary

fomite

fo·mite

UK/ˈfəʊmʌɪt/ US/ˈfoʊmaɪt/ uncommon

noun

1.

any inanimate object (as a towel or money or clothing or dishes or books or toys etc.) that can transmit infectious agents from one person to another

Synonyms

Origin

A back-formation from fomites, plural of fomes, a borrowing of medical Latin fōmes (“tinder, kindling”), used figuratively to evoke the analogy of a spreading infection to a spreading fire.

Related words

Broader terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.