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LATIN · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

virus.

venom (sg.), poisonous secretion of snakes/creatures/plants; acrid element;

5 characters2 syllables approx.Latina language

Meaning & usage

noun[ˈwiː.rʊs]Classical-Latin[ˈviː.rus]
  1. venom (a poisonous substance secreted by animals or plants)

    declension-2
  2. a plant- or animal-sourced substance with medicinal or magical properties

    declension-2
  3. a liquid element that makes something taste or smell bitter or acrid

    declension-2
  4. a liquid element that makes something taste or smell bitter or acrid bitterness, acrimony (of speech, manner or disposition)

    declension-2
  5. a virus (infectious organism)

    New-Latin · declension-2
Where this word comes from

Via rhotacism from Proto-Italic *weizos, from Proto-Indo-European *wisós (“fluidity, slime, poison”). Cognates include Sanskrit विष (viṣá), Ancient Greek ἰός (iós, “poison”), Tocharian B wase, and Middle Irish fí. The neuter gender, despite its nominative singular ending -us being typical of the masculine second declension, is possibly a relic of this term's inheritance from a neuter s-stem.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.