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Origin and history of infectious

infectious(adj.)

"catching, having the quality of spreading from person to person, communicable by infection," 1540s of diseases, 1610s of emotions, actions, etc.; see infection + -ous. Earlier in the same sense were infectuous (late 15c.), infective (late 14c.). Related: Infectiously; infectiousness.

also from 1540s

Entries linking to infectious

infection(n.)

late 14c., "infectious disease; contaminated condition;" from Old French infeccion "contamination, poisoning" (13c.) and directly from Late Latin infectionem (nominative infectio) "infection, contagion," noun of action from past participle stem of Latin inficere "to spoil, to stain" (see infect). Meaning "communication of disease by agency of air or water" (distinguished from contagion, which is body-to-body communication), is from 1540s.

-ous

word-forming element making adjectives from nouns, meaning "having, full of, having to do with, doing, inclined to," from Old French -ous, -eux, from Latin -osus (compare -ose (1)). In chemistry, "having a lower valence than forms expressed in -ic."

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