pathogen
English
editEtymology
editPronunciation
editNoun
editpathogen (plural pathogens)
- (pathology, immunology) An agent that can cause disease, especially an infectious microorganism, such as a bacterium, virus, protozoon or fungus.
- Synonym: infectious agent
- 2013 January, Katie L. Burke, “Ecological Dependency”, in American Scientist[1], volume 101, number 1, archived from the original on 9 February 2017, page 64:
- In his first book since the 2008 essay collection Natural Acts: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature, David Quammen looks at the natural world from yet another angle: the search for the next human pandemic, what epidemiologists call “the next big one.” His quest leads him around the world to study a variety of suspect zoonoses—animal-hosted pathogens that infect humans.
Usage notes
editIn most contexts, the term pathogen is exclusively applied to infectious microorganisms, including viruses, and does not cover harmful substances such as asbestos or various toxins. Some authors reserve the term for the microorganisms that are the actual cause of an observed case of disease, so in this usage the same microorganism that is pathogenic in one host may not be categorized as a pathogen in another infected host.
Derived terms
editTranslations
editany organism or substance that causes disease
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Anagrams
editGerman
editEtymology
editFrom πάθος (páthos, “suffering, pain”) + -γενής (-genḗs, “producer of”). Equivalent to patho- + -gen.
Pronunciation
editAdjective
editpathogen (strong nominative masculine singular pathogener, comparative pathogener, superlative am pathogensten)
- pathogenic
- Synonym: krankheitserregend
Declension
editPositive forms of pathogen
Comparative forms of pathogen
Superlative forms of pathogen
Derived terms
editFurther reading
edit- “pathogen” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
- “pathogen” in Duden online
- “pathogen”, in Online-Wortschatz-Informationssystem Deutsch (in German), Mannheim: Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, 2008–
- “pathogen” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon
Categories:
- English terms prefixed with patho-
- English terms suffixed with -gen
- English 3-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- en:Pathology
- en:Immunology
- English terms with quotations
- German terms suffixed with -gen
- German 3-syllable words
- German terms with IPA pronunciation
- German terms with audio pronunciation
- German lemmas
- German adjectives
- de:Pathology