Infect
[ɪn'fekt] or [ɪn'fɛkt]
Definition
(verb.) contaminate with a disease or microorganism.
(verb.) communicate a disease to; 'Your children have infected you with this head cold'.
(verb.) affect in a contagious way; 'His laughter infects everyone who is in the same room'.
(verb.) corrupt with ideas or an ideology; 'society was infected by racism'.
Inputed by Angie--From WordNet
Definition
(v. t.) Infected. Cf. Enfect.
(v. t.) To taint with morbid matter or any pestilential or noxious substance or effluvium by which disease is produced; as, to infect a lancet; to infect an apartment.
(v. t.) To affect with infectious disease; to communicate infection to; as, infected with the plague.
(v. t.) To communicate to or affect with, as qualities or emotions, esp. bad qualities; to corrupt; to contaminate; to taint by the communication of anything noxious or pernicious.
(v. t.) To contaminate with illegality or to expose to penalty.
Typed by Kate
Synonyms and Synonymous
v. a. [1]. Taint with disease, affect with contagious matter.[2]. Pollute, contaminate, vitiate, poison, defile, corrupt.
Checker: Roy
Synonyms and Antonyms
SYN:Taint, corrupt, contaminate, pollute, defile,[See CONTAMINATE]
Checked by Darren
Definition
v.t. to taint especially with disease: to corrupt: to poison.—adj. (Shak.) tainted.—n. Infec′tion act of infecting: that which infects or taints.—adjs. Infec′tious Infect′ive having the quality of infecting: corrupting: apt to spread.—adv. Infec′tiously.—n. Infec′tiousness.
Inputed by Emilia
Examples
- Such conditions also infect the education called liberal, with illiberality. John Dewey. Democracy and Education.
- For if you allow yourself the luxury of normal fear that fear will infect those who must work with you. Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom The Bell Tolls.
- We infect everyone about us. Charles Dickens. David Copperfield.
- The danger I spoke of arises just here: the desire to infect at once the whole mass crowds out the courage of the innovator. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
- The shock dulls the pain; but this is all right, you have nothing to worry about if it doesn't infect and it rarely does now. Ernest Hemingway. A Farewell To Arms.
- This is the order of nature, to prevent animals being infected by their own perspiration. Benjamin Franklin. Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin.
- Nations, bordering on the already infected countries, began to enter upon serious plans for the better keeping out of the enemy. Mary Shelley. The Last Man.
- They fumigated us to guard themselves against the cholera, though we hailed from no infected port. Mark Twain. The Innocents Abroad.
- I will not have this room shunned as if it were infected, at the pleasure of a child. Charles Dickens. David Copperfield.
- He desired to go; each day he expected to be infected by pestilence, each day he was unable to resist the gentle violence of Adrian's detention. Mary Shelley. The Last Man.
- When I enquired for them, the man to whom I spoke, uttered the word plague, and fell at my feet in convulsions; he also was infected. Mary Shelley. The Last Man.
- Twemlow has before noticed in his feeble way how soon the Veneering guests become infected with the Veneering fiction. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- I shall throw off this degrading weakness of body, which infects even my mind with debility, and I shall enter again on the performance of my duties. Mary Shelley. The Last Man.
- By degrees the anarchy finds a way into private houses, and ends by getting among the animals and infecting them. Plato. The Republic.
Checker: Susie