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virulent

vi·ru·lent

UK/ˈvɪɹ(j)ʊl(ə)nt/ US/-ɹ(j)ə-/ rare

adjective

1.

extremely poisonous or injurious; producing venom

  • “venomous snakes”
  • “a virulent insect bite”
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2.
3.

harsh or corrosive in tone

  • “an acerbic tone piercing otherwise flowery prose”
  • “a barrage of acid comments”
  • “her acrid remarks make her many enemies”
  • “bitter words”
  • “blistering criticism”
  • “caustic jokes about political assassination, talk-show hosts and medical ethics”
  • “a sulfurous denunciation”
  • “a vitriolic critique”
Synonyms
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Origin

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.

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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.