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Infectious   Listen
adjective
Infectious  adj.  
1.
Having qualities that may infect; communicable or caused by infection; pestilential; epidemic; as, an infectious fever; infectious clothing; infectious water; infectious vices. "Where the infectious pestilence."
2.
Corrupting, or tending to corrupt or contaminate; vitiating; demoralizing. "It (the court) is necessary for the polishing of manners... but it is infectious even to the best morals to live always in it."
3.
(Law) Contaminating with illegality; exposing to seizure and forfeiture. "Contraband articles are said to be of an infectious nature."
4.
Capable of being easily diffused or spread; sympathetic; readily communicated; as, infectious mirth. "The laughter was so genuine as to be infectious."
Synonyms: See Contagious.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Infectious" Quotes from Famous Books



... ludicrous, and suddenly struck by the absurdity, she laughed out. Her laugh was so merry and infectious as to lay his suspicion at once, and he couldn't help joining her. And then, somehow, each understood the misapprehension of the other, and they laughed ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray

... "He was trying to make a vaccine out of a common infectious organism. You may know it better as Staphylococcus. As you know, it's a pus former that's made hospital life more dangerous than it should be because it develops resistance to antibiotics. What Thurston wanted to do was to produce ...
— Pandemic • Jesse Franklin Bone

... yours. It was as catching as fire, as exhilarating as the chime of sleigh-bells on a frosty Thanksgiving morning, as clear and true as a redbird's whistle; and it had tucked away in it a funny, throaty chuckle so irresistibly infectious that suspicious old St. Anthony himself, would have joined in accord with it, had he heard its silver echo in his wilderness. Berkeley Hayden's immortal soul stood on the tiptoe of ecstasy when ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler

... affection for her husband and the respect she pays him are infectious in a family. Hortense believed her father to be a perfect model of conjugal affection; as to their son, brought up to admire the Baron, whom everybody regarded as one of the giants who so effectually backed Napoleon, he knew that he owed his advancement to ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... she forgave him. Her spirits were in extreme agitation till she saw him a little composed, for she feared his senses were affected; but when her alarm began to abate, the effect of her terrors and her grief appeared in a flood of tears; Mr Alworth found them infectious, and she was obliged to dry them up in order to comfort him. When he grew more composed, Harriot ventured, after expressing her concern for his having conceived so unfortunate a passion, to intimate that absence was the best remedy and that there was nothing ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott

... was so much affected as Mr. Falkland. Perhaps no man so well understood the value of the life that was now at stake. He immediately hastened to the spot; but he found some difficulty in gaining admission. Mr. Clare, aware of the infectious nature of his disease, had given directions that as few persons as possible should approach him. Mr. Falkland sent up his name. He was told that he was included in the general orders. He was not, however, of a temper to be easily repulsed; he ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... moment's bewildered surprise he threw back his handsome blond head and gave vent to a great, deep infectious roar of mirth that brought the Spalpeens tumbling up the stairs in defiance of ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber

... attempt to enforce it without enough of that joyous, cheerful spirit of love which is its main spring. Nobody can become acquainted with our soldiers in any land, without being almost immediately struck with their extraordinary gladness, and this joy is in itself one of the most infectious and influential elements of the Army's success. But if this be so, amid the comparatively well to do, judge of what its results are likely to be amongst the poorest and most wretched! To those who have never known bright days, the mere sight of a happy face is as it ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... novel Hardy lightened the tragedy of life with rare comedy. These comic interludes are furnished by a choice collection of rustics, who discuss the affairs of the universe and of their own township with a humor that is infectious. In this work Hardy surpasses George Eliot and all other novelists of his day, just as he surpasses them all in such wholesome types of country life as Giles Winterbourne and Marty South of The Woodlanders. No pathos ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch

... Roger's had been the simple consequence of affection, and the end to poor Osborne was that he became moody and depressed in mind and body; but both father and son concealed their feelings in Roger's presence. When he came home just before sailing, busy and happy, the squire caught his infectious energy, and Osborne looked up and ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... air is there so pestiferous, that there is no going thither for our nation without great mortality among the men. Fortunately this is not necessary in procuring pepper, as the Surat commodities at Tecoo are sufficiently attractive. I have even observed many of the natives to labour under infectious diseases, the limbs of some being ready to drop off with rottenness, while others had huge wens or swellings under their throats, as large as a two-penny loaf; which they impute to the bad water.[177] Though ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... inclination. Some of the persons afflicted with this horrid disorder, I found to be of considerable rank, and quite removed from the want of a nourishing diet. I am almost certain that this disease is not infectious, as I know an instance of a woman, who has lost all her toes and fingers, and who, in that state, has had a child, which she nursed. The child is two years old, and is very healthy. The natives consider the disease as hereditary, and allege that the child ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton

... said my friend. "I confess that I, who have seen so many of them, am by no means fond of the company of lepers. Indeed, I wish that they would never enter my shop, as they occasionally do to beg. Nothing is more infectious, as I have heard, than leprosy: there is one very virulent species, however, which is particularly dreaded here, the elephantine: those who die of it should, according to law, be burnt, and their ashes scattered to the winds: for if the body of such a leper be interred ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... to feel guilty at the idea of disturbing Lucy's immaculate pantry at such an hour; but liberty is highly infectious. She had spent the evening out without previous intent; the next step was to feel that her soul was her own on her return. She unlocked the forks, Evan unpacked the upstairs ice-chest for the dog's head bass that wise women always have when they expect visiting Englishmen, ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... dinners and luncheons were unique because of his universal acquaintance with literary and scientific people. There were generally some of them present. His infectious enthusiasm and hearty cordiality drew out the best points of each guest. I was present at a large dinner one evening when an instance occurred which greatly amused him. There were some forty guests. When they were ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew

... the burly cattle-man, roaring with infectious laughter, "he wont bring me nothin'. One of us will sit up anyway and tell him it's for you. You've got to hustle to bed right away because he may be here ...
— A Little Book for Christmas • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... part is directed to the whole, as imperfect to perfect, wherefore every part is naturally for the sake of the whole. For this reason we observe that if the health of the whole body demands the excision of a member, through its being decayed or infectious to the other members, it will be both praiseworthy and advantageous to have it cut away. Now every individual person is compared to the whole community, as part to whole. Therefore if a man be dangerous and infectious to the community, on account of some sin, it is praiseworthy and advantageous ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... described Ireland in the first quarter of the eighteenth century says: "On the vigil of St. John the Baptist's Nativity, they make bonfires, and run along the streets and fields with wisps of straw blazing on long poles to purify the air, which they think infectious, by believing all the devils, spirits, ghosts, and hobgoblins fly abroad this night to hurt mankind."[517] Another writer states that he witnessed the festival in Ireland in 1782: "At the house where I was ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... with the small pox, that there was no distinction in the pustules. As she was in the same little room with myself, I knew Maria would take it; I therefore inoculated her from another child, before Mary's had arrived at such a state as to be infectious. At the same time, I inoculated Abby, and the jailer's children, who all had it so lightly as hardly to interrupt their play. But the inoculation in the arm of my poor little Maria did not take—she caught it of Mary, and had it the natural way. She was ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... cannon and the ancient projectile machines were employed at the siege of Aiguillon in 1339, at Zara in 1345, at Rennes in 1357, and at Naples in 1380. At this last siege the ancient balista was employed to throw into the castle of Naples barrels of infectious matter and mutilated limbs of prisoners of war. We read of the same thing being done in Spain at a ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... infectious and before they realized it the scouts were as thoroughly interested as every one else. They began to talk automobiles to all with whom they came in contact and soon picked up a great deal of information about the notables who were to take ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump

... the two. The features named make up a captivating girlish beauty, but one which, under a New England atmosphere, is rarely carried forward into womanhood. The lips grow pinched and bloodless; the skin blanched against all proof of blushes; the eyes sunken, and the blithe sparkle that was so full of infectious joy is lost forever in that exhausting blaze of girlhood. But we make no prophecy in regard to the future of our little friend Rose. Adele thinks her very charming; Reuben is disposed to rank her—whatever Phil may think or say—far above Suke Boody. And ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... Bessie is very ill with fever," answered Marian. Then, catching his anxious look, she hastened to add, "It is nothing infectious—some kind of a slow, sapping variety. There is no ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... everything amused her—she was the very soul of girlish joy. The dark-brown spot on her eye shone out with a coquettish light never seen in it until now, and the warble in her voice was like the music of a happy bird. Her high spirits were infectious—her lighthearted gaiety communicated itself to everybody. The men who might not dance with her were smiling at the mere sight of the sunshine in her face, and it was even whispered about that the President of the College ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... won't have any further use for this—thing?" indicating the pass, which she received back with fine loathing, as if it were something infectious. ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... is infectious; but then argument is, on the other hand, a great emboldener; and so when each had said his say, my mother made them a speech. She would not, she declared, lose money that belonged to her fatherless boy; "If none of the rest ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson

... trueth, that all the tract from Cape de las Palmas trending by C. de tres puntas alongst by Benin, vnto the Ile of S. Thomas (which is perpendiculer under the Equinoctial)[58] all that whole Bay is more subiect to many blooming and smoothering heates, with infectious and contagious ayres, then any other place in all Torrida Zona: and the cause thereof is some accidents in the land. For it is most certaine, that mountains, Seas, woods and lakes, &c, may cause through their sundry kinde of situation, sundry strange and extraordinary effects, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt

... so they will almost certainly sooner or later be found. Curiously enough most of the diseases in this last class and many of those in the first are contagious, while all that are caused by animal parasites are, as far as is known, infectious but not contagious. ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane

... eyes. He was still under the spell of youthful beliefs, he had just left home, pure and sacred feelings had been stirred within him, and this was his first day on the battlefield of civilization in Paris. Genuine feeling is so infectious that for a moment the three looked at each other ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac

... had once made them enthusiastic, and which they would enjoy once more as though they were new for them too? Who would fill the house and garden with his laughter, with that careless laughter that is so infectious? Who would kiss them with warm lips, and make them happy by his tenderness? Who would carry them on his wings with him, so that they did not feel they ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig

... most surprised and shocked of any in the room, Phipps yawned. The failing was infectious, and the gathering having, as you can easily understand, talked itself weary, dispersed on trivial pretences. But not to sleep immediately. Directly Dangle was alone he began, with infinite disgust, to scrutinise his darkling eye, for he was a neat-minded little man in spite ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells

... and the world of so much kindly laughter. But, haunted as it is by this shadow of bereavement, you must in no way think of it as wholly a thing of gloom. Looking back into the good years, the writer has recalled many incidents and scenes full of that genial and most infectious merriment that we have learnt to expect from her—tales of the wonderful peasant chorus that one remembers first in the pages of An Irish R.M., exploits after hounds (it needs no telling how well both ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 19, 1917 • Various

... to resist such infectious spirits. Lorelei began to see sunshine, and before she knew it she was laughing, in the best of humor with herself and her surroundings. Adoree, clad now in a nameless, formless garment which she had discovered in a closet, her own modish belongings safely rolled up ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... 1891) comes a change. Bergens Tidende remarks that it is a common experience that a second performance is not so successful as the first. Certainly this was true in the case of Henry IV. The life and sparkle were gone, and the sallies of Falstaff awakened no such infectious laughter as they had a few evenings before.[36] There was no applause from the crowded house, and the coolness of the audience reacted upon the players—all in violent contrast to the first performance. The reviewer in Aftenbladet predicts that the production will have no very long life.[37] ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud

... of her spontaneous ease was infectious, and the shy man's answering laugh showed how it had caught his soul. "Is that all?" says he. "That's soon done—Sally! You know, I do call you Sally when I ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... heart-service and love—works of far more value. Nor was John Barton behind in these. "The fever" was (as it usually is in Manchester) of a low, putrid, typhoid kind; brought on by miserable living, filthy neighbourhood, and great depression of mind and body. It is virulent, malignant, and highly infectious. But the poor are fatalists with regard to infection! and well for them it is so, for in their crowded dwellings no invalid can be isolated. Wilson asked Barton if he thought he should catch it, and was ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell

... her fears were genuine. Still, as she went, she spied around as if for dangers; and now she would shiver like a person in a chill, and now clutch his arm in hers. To Challoner her terror was at once repugnant and infectious; it gained and mastered, while it still offended him; and he wailed in spirit and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... hands, our thoughts and our researches. There was a time when lightning, epidemics and earthquakes were attributed without distinction to the wrath of Heaven. Nowadays, when we are more or less familiar with the source of the great infectious diseases, the hand of Providence knows them no more; and, though we are still ignorant of the nature of electricity and the laws that regulate seismic shocks, we no longer dream, while waiting to learn more about them, of looking for their causes in the judgment or anger of an imaginary Being. ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck

... down among them from the summit of her achievement, clasping their various hands. They were all personally responsible for her success, she made them feel that, and they expanded in the conviction. She moved in a kind of tide of infectious vitality, subtly drawing from every human flavour in the room the power to hold and show something akin to it in herself, a fugitive assimilation floating in the lamplight with the odour of the flowers and the soup, to be extinguished with the occasion. They looked ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... so happy in your life, Moll, as that time we were in Spain, nor can I recollect ever feeling so free from care myself,—after we got out of the hands of that gentleman robber. There's a sort of infectious brightness in the sun, and the winds, blow which way they may, do chase away dull thoughts and dispose one to jollity; eh, sweetheart? Why, we met never a tattered vagabond on the road but he was halloing of ditties, and a kinder, more hospitable ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett

... glass in their hands, and a jest on their lips; and, strange to say, among these funeral satellites, who breathed the very atmosphere of the disease, the mortality was scarcely perceptible. In the dark, squalid quarters of the town, where, surrounded by infectious exhalations, the indigent population was crowded together, and miserable beings, exhausted by severe privation, were "bespoke" by the cholera, as it was energetically said at the time, not only individuals, but whole families, were carried off in a few hours; and yet, sometimes, oh, merciful ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, completed a series of experiments which showed that apparently healthy wild rats in the European war zone became infected with Weil's disease, or "infectious jaundice," common in Asia. Weil's disease is characterized by sudden onsets of malaise, often intense muscular pain, high fever for several days, followed by jaundice, frequently accompanied by complications. ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... him go and change his coat but when some infectious thing has been about. Besides, he did not wait to let me help him ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... departure dawned clear and bright. Claire was in extravagant spirits, while even Mrs. Ralston seemed to catch the infectious cheeriness of the day, and her ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch

... had the most constructive power. With the same buoyant courage that he had led our regiment in battle did he lead the remnant of us in reconstructing our lives. He was gay and optimistic, laughed at bitterness and worked with infectious spirits and superb force. We all depended on him and followed him keenly. We loved him and let ourselves be laughed into his schemes. It was his high spirits and temperament that led to his gaming and tragedy. Nearly thirty years he's been dead, the happy ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess

... what I gave, since thou art proud, ungrateful, Presuming to contend with him to whom Submission is due, I will take from thee. Look therefore for extremities and expect not I will correct thee as a son, but kill thee As a serpent swollen with poison; who surviving A little longer with infectious breath, Would render all things near him like itself Contagious. Nay, now my anger's up, Ten thousand virgins kneeling at my feet, And with one general cry howling for ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... man laughed, a splendid, mellow laugh, with the ring of true jollity in it,—a laugh that was infectious, for Errington and Lorimer joined in it heartily without precisely knowing why. Lorimer, however, thought it seemly to protest ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... 5th of July, 1806. Sums of money were voted to Dr. Jenner for the promulgation of his valuable discovery of vaccine inoculation; to Mr. Greathead for his invention of the life-boat; and to Dr. Carmichael Smith for a discovery of nitrous fumigation, for preventing the progress of infectious disorders. Parliament was prorogued on the 28th of June by the king in person, who congratulated the country on the peace and prosperity it was enjoying; and on the next day it ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... was partly due to the infectious nature of emotion, of which Biddy was so lavish that my prospects were discussed in a sadly unbusiness-like fashion. My conscience is really quite clear of having led her to hope that I would look out for Micky on the other side of the Atlantic, but I fear that she had made up her mind that we ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... typhus fever.) Infectious diseases caused by rickettsia bacteria, especially those transmitted by fleas, lice, or mites. Symptoms are severe headache, sustained high fever, depression, delirium, and the eruption of red rashes ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... Nigel's jealousy of Percy—and not of Percy only, but in a less degree of most men Bertha knew—was not very far behind his wife's jealousy of him. A morbid propensity that causes great suffering in domestic life is often curiously infectious to the very person for whom it creates most suffering. Nigel sometimes found himself positively imitating Mary in many little ways; watching, and listening and asking indirect questions to find things out: if he had dared he would have ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson

... to consumption have been exploded, but it is acknowledged by all, to be an infectious disease. As such, ignorant people do not understand how to escape it; indeed, until anti-spitting laws are more universal and more rigidly enforced, every one may be exposed to these deadly germs. They ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... these and other facts, which he relates, the Doctor declares it to be his deliberate conclusion, as a medical man, that "the dust, filth, and dirt, accumulated in the 'sweating dens' he has visited and examined, contain the germs of the prevailing infectious diseases, such as diphtheria, scarlatina, measles, erysipelas, and smallpox, and that the clothing manufactured in these shops is impregnated with such germs, and consequently may transmit and spread the aforesaid diseases to persons who handle ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks

... the cakes and fruit appeared, rose abruptly from the table. Opposite Jack sat Dr. Hirsch, whose finances, to judge from his appearance, were in a most deplorable condition. He enlivened the repast by all sorts of scientific jokes, by descriptions of surgical operations, by accounts of infectious diseases, and, in fact, kept his hearers au courant with all the ailments of the day; and, if he heard of a case of leprosy, of elephantiasis, or of the plague, in any quarter of the globe, he would nod his head with delight, and say, "It will be ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... research in preventive medicine, and extend the application of its results. In particular carry on the campaign against infectious and contagious diseases, and especially ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson

... she found her brother whistling the blithe air of "Green Sleeves," cutting strange capers, in imitation of the morris-dancers, and whirling his cudgel over his head instead of a kerchief. The gaiety of the day seemed infectious, and to have seized even him. People stared to see Black Jem, or Surly Jem, as he was indifferently called, so joyous, and wondered what it could mean. He then fell to singing a snatch of a local ballad at that time in vogue in ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... that animalcules are the cause of the various contagious and infectious disorders has created much discussion; and although this opinion is not generally entertained by the faculty, the idea is so feasible, and so many rational arguments can be brought forward in its support, that I cannot help touching upon a topic ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... environment. What folly to spend time and money on the father or mother. How inefficient any effort to save the children just one by one. Get to work at once and drain the swamp, drive out the poisonous and infectious insects with which the place is swarming, fill in the land with fine clean earth, plant flowers and sow seeds of fruitful harvests, let the salt sea blow in and breathe across ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman

... was infectious, and swept away his outraged dignity. He laughed too. At last she said, gazing at his hat, "It won't do for you to go back to your folks wearin' that sort o' thing. Here! Take mine!" With a saucy movement she ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte

... liquors; she should go to bed early and take not less than nine hours sleep; her clothing should be loose, light in weight, and warm. She should take every precaution against exposure to contagious or infectious diseases. ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... "It is not infectious, Mr. Smee, I hope?" asked Marion, anxiously. "Nothing to prevent my sister going to stay at ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron

... on the top rail of the fence bordering the garden at the back. Patience's enthusiasm was infectious. "What sort of good times ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs

... lovely in bed! We felt it our duty to scream, and then Marcus Aurelius shut the door. Are you fearfully shocked at my being so schoolgirlish, Mamma? Don't be, I shall get old directly I get back home, and it is all the infectious gaiety of ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn

... laughed outright, and—it was a tremendous sarcasm for her—asked him if he were not afraid the example of the Black Forest was becoming infectious. ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells

... this "transmission of emotion," this "infectious" quality of art as a means of union among men, that he reduced a good case to an absurdity, for he argued himself into thinking that if a given work of art does not infect the spectator—and preferably the uneducated "peasant" spectator—with emotion, it is therefore not art at all. He overlooked ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry

... became infectious, the three guests were suddenly aroused by a furious clattering down the steep descent of the mountain, along the trail they had just ridden! It came near, increasing in sound, until it even seemed to scatter the fine gravel of the river-bed against the sides of the house, ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte

... human race cases of what may be called natural death are extremely rare; the death of old people is usually due to infectious disease, particularly pneumonia, or to apoplexy. The close analogy between natural death and sleep supports my view that it is due to an auto-intoxication of the organism, since it is very probable that sleep is due to "poisoning" by ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... (George H. Doran Company). I shall claim no special literary quality for this short story which Mr. Cobb has reprinted from The Saturday Evening Post, but America usually shows such poverty in producing humorous stories that the infectious quality of this wildly improbable adventure makes the story seem better than it really is. It cannot be regarded as more than a diversion from Mr. Cobb's rich ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... "I don't question your cleverness, fair lady;—only your wisdom. You are too prone to let your feelings run away with you, and that is the most infectious disorder ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... is a most interesting Negro character—one of the most genial personalities of the Old South that the interviewer has met anywhere. His humor is infectious, his voice boisterous, but delightful, and his uproarious laugh just such as one delights to listen to. And his narrations ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... heroes. It is apt to esteem that man most human who has his qualities in a certain exaggeration, whose courage is passionate, whose generosity is without deliberation, whose just action is without premeditation, whose spirit runs toward its favorite objects with an infectious and reckless ardor, whose wisdom is no child of slow prudence. We love Achilles more than Diomedes, and Ulysses not at all. But these are standards left over from a ruder state of society: we should have passed by this ...
— On Being Human • Woodrow Wilson

... laughed, and Uncle Remus supplemented this indorsement of his descriptive powers with a most infectious chuckle. ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris

... I don't need anything, for I brought all sorts of home comforts with me. Oh, Fan, you ought to have seen my triumphal entry into the city, sitting among my goods and chattels, in a farmer's cart." Polly's laugh was so infectious that every one smiled and forgot to be shocked at her performance. "Yes," she added, "I kept wishing I could meet you, just to see your horrified face when you saw me sitting on my little sofa, ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... millions of dollars of indemnity paid by France to Germany in the late war. It is also to be remembered that M. Pasteur's labors imparted stimulus to discovery in many directions, setting many discoverers at work, who are now experimenting on the working hypothesis of the parasitic origin of all other infectious diseases. ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... be removed as a common nuisance, they ought at least to be avoided as infectious. All who regard their health should keep at a distance, even from their habitations. In places where great numbers of people are collected, cleanliness ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... such projects as these, the hopelessness of the task, and the depressing effect of the contact with much wretchedness, wore me out. I had a nursery of my own, and was not justified in risking infectious diseases. A saint would have been more heroic, and could besides have promised that sweetest of consolations to suffering millions - the compensation of Eternal Happiness. I could not give them even hope, for I had none to spare. The root-evil I felt to be the overcrowding due to ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... like anthrax withstand drying with impunity; even tuberculous material, although not possessing spores retains its infectious properties for many months. Most of the dairy bacteria do not produce spores, and yet in a dry condition, they retain their vitality unimpaired for considerable periods, if they are not subjected to ...
— Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition - A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying • H. L. Russell

... hoping to keep their heads. So the second course found their minds somewhat heated. Every one ate as he spoke, spoke while he ate, and drank without heeding the quantity of the liquor, the wine was so biting, the bouquet so fragrant, the example around so infectious. Taillefer made a point of stimulating his guests, and plied them with the formidable wines of the Rhone, with fierce Tokay, and heady ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... with three horses abreast to each, their harness jingling with bells, drew up in a line before the steps, the runners creaking and crunching over the frozen snow. Natacha was the foremost, and the first to tune her spirits to the pitch of this carnival freak. This mirth, in fact, proved highly infectious, and reached its height of tumult and excitement when the party went down the steps and packed themselves into the sleighs, laughing and shouting to each other at the top of their voices. Two of the sleighs were drawn by light cart-horses, to the third the count's carriage horses were ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... home in the Magnolia; and I was rewarded when we climbed up into that great ship, with two hundred passengers on board, by finding that there was not a single case of yellow fever, or anything infectious. We had a delightful ten days' passage, stopping a few hours at Lisbon, but not allowed to land, and then straight to Southampton. My only regret was leaving Captain Grenfell, who had been so kind to the children all ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... Major infectious diseases: degree of risk: very high food or waterborne diseases: bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever vectorborne diseases: malaria and yellow fever are high risks in some locations water contact disease: ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... had run great risk, for there is no disease more infectious than the plague. She determined, therefore, that so soon as she reached home she would burn her dress and other articles of clothing and purify herself with the fumes of herbs. Then she dismissed the matter from her mind, which was ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... Jack grumbled, at which they all laughed with such infectious mirth that more than one passer-by turned to ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... let your companions regard you with the contempt and abhorrence you so richly merit!" Here, needless to say, the whole school glared at poor Coggs with as much virtuous indignation as they could summon up at such short notice; for contempt is very infectious ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... a matter of surprise that so many of the most finely-educated artists mentioned in this book are found to have been residents of the city mentioned. Affected by its all-pervading, its infectious, so to say, musical spirit, they eagerly embraced the many opportunities offered for culture; and their noble achievements are only such as would have been made by others of the same race residing ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter

... implicitly. She is a clever woman evidently, and a great sibyl here. No doubt she has faith in her own predictions. She told Mme. Mounier (who is a Levantine) that she would never have a child, and was forbidden the house accordingly, and the prophecy has 'come true.' Superstition is wonderfully infectious here. The fact is that the Arabs are so intensely impressionable, and so cowardly about inspiring any ill-will, that if a man looks askance at them it is enough to make them ill, and as calamities are not infrequent, there is always some mishap ready to be laid to the charge of somebody's ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... thing is always so painful. But I know of a first-rate place for rest-cures; I think it would be wise if I just casually dropped the name of it to Mr Robert, in case. And this last craze seems so terribly infectious. Fancy Mrs Weston dabbling in palmistry! It is too comical, but I hope I did not hurt her feelings by suggesting that Peppino or you wrote the Manual, It is dangerous to make little jokes ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... armies now remained in view of each other, equally defended by inaccessible entrenchments, without attempting anything more than slight attacks and unimportant skirmishes. On both sides, infectious diseases, the natural consequence of bad food, and a crowded population, had occasioned a greater loss than the sword. And this evil daily increased. But at length, the long expected succours arrived in the Swedish camp; and ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... were to be fifty years of age and upwards at their admission, except maimed soldiers, who are capable of being admitted at forty years of age. Nor are any to be admitted who are afflicted with leprosy, or any unclean or infectious disease, or who shall be possessed of the value of 200 pounds, or 14 pounds per annum for life, or who are married men. No poor brother to go beyond sea without the licence of six of the governors, nor to go into the country for above two months without ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales

... various ordinances of the department. In particular I refer to the Horse-breeders Ordinance, the Fire and Game Ordinances and the Public Health Act, the latter calling for vigilant work in patrolling foreign settlements quarantined for outbreaks of infectious and contagious diseases. Had it not been for the excellent service rendered to the department by this hard-working and highly-trained force of men, the spread of disease would ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth

... not been that a short time afterwards he lost Mohammed's sister ("my dear wife the princess," he used to say solemnly), by whom he had had a daughter—mother and child both dying within three days of each other from some infectious fever. He left the country, which this cruel loss had made unbearable to him. Thus ended the first and adventurous part of his existence. What followed was so different that, but for the reality ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... should say. No question about his firmness or his kindness. Yes—fine head—and a gentleman, that is best of all. When you come to marry always hunt up the grandfather—saves such a lot of trouble in after life," and one of Peter's infectious ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith

... and the introspective, who suffered from the torture of apprehension. Even timid fellows in the ranks were, I imagine, strengthened and exalted by the communal courage of their company or battalion, for courage as well as fear is infectious, and the psychology of the crowd uplifts the individual to immense heights of daring when alone he would be terror—stricken. The public-school spirit of pride in name and tradition was in each battalion of the New Army, extended later to the division, which ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... for him if he will take it, but try everything to tempt him, and give him as much as he will take. When you take your patient for a walk (and he will need exercise) do not take him where he may meet other dogs, for distemper is very infectious. Put an extra coat over him, wrapping it well round his throat and chest. Distemper is a fever, and the risk of chill is very great; it means inflammation of some sort from which the dog being weak is not likely to recover. It is always ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... the above-mentioned "What then must we do?" Certain it is that no human document ever revealed the soul of its author with greater sincerity. Not for its practical suggestions, but for its impassioned humanity, its infectious altruism, "What then must we do?" takes its rank among the world's few living books. It marks that stage of Tolstoy's evolution when he made successive essays in practical philanthropy which filled him with discouragement, yet were "of use to his soul" in teaching him how far below ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy

... the parlour, accorded him a hearty welcome on his descent of the narrow steep little stairs, intimating that he was every whit as ready to be up and doing as was his master. The sunshine, the blithesomeness of the morning was infectious. You felt yourself smiling in accord ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore

... and foolishness. That's so, isn't it? I have guessed how you feel, haven't I? Only in that way you'll lose your head and Razumihin's, too; he's too good a man for such a position, you must know that. You are ill and he is good and your illness is infectious for him... I'll tell you about it when you are more yourself.... But do sit down, for goodness' sake. Please rest, you look shocking, ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... like. Only give the other fellows a chance at it—men who don't know anything about me. Set them talking and looking about. I don't care a damn whether YOU believe me—what I want is to convince the Grand Jury! I oughtn't to have come to a man who knows me—your cursed incredulity is infectious. I don't put my case well, because I know in advance it's discredited, and I almost end by not believing it myself. That's why I can't convince YOU. It's a vicious circle." He laid a hand on Denver's arm. "Send a stenographer, and put ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... Felix Robertson of Tennessee (Philadelphia, 1805), found vent in an unparalleled blaze of enthusiastic religion, which spread with lightning-like rapidity in almost every part of Tennessee and Kentucky, and in various parts of Virginia, in 1800, being distinguished by uncontrollable and infectious muscular contractions, gesticulations, crying, laughing, shouting, and singing. To similar epidemics are attributed the uncontrollable acts which, till late in the nineteenth century, were a feature of North American camp meetings for divine service in the open air, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... has a separate cubicle, more or less neat and comfortable, sometimes prettily decorated, according to the family taste and habit; the barracks for the single men; the barracks for the single women; the two hospitals, one general, the other for infectious diseases; and last of all, the house where the half-dozen disorderly women are confined, surrounded by a double fence of barbed wire and ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke

... in the moment of meeting, he had avoided asking Betty about George. Betty's twin had been away at the time of Radmore's break with Old Place—away in a sense which in our civilised days can only be brought about by one thing, an infectious illness. At the time the agonising debate was going on at Beechfield, he had been in a fever hospital close on a month, and they were none of them to see him for three more weeks. It had been at once a pain and ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes

... have you in here, sir," went on Mr. Van Riper, with no abatement of his agitation. "I don't want to be inhospitable; but I've got a wife and a son, sir, and you're infectious—damn ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner

... them to look there should be better walking." The winter proved sickly; an "infection that grew among the passengers at sea, spread also among them ashore, of which many died, some of the scurvy, others of an infectious fever." Endicott sent to Plymouth for medical assistance, and Fuller, the physician of that place, made ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... out of this life; therefore, to the intent they may be always in a readiness to die, whensoever it shall please Almighty God to call them, the Curates shall diligently from time to time (but especially in the time of pestilence, or other infectious sickness) exhort their Parishioners to the often receiving of the holy Communion of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ, when it shall be publickly administered in the Church; that so doing, they may, in case of sudden ...
— Ritual Conformity - Interpretations of the Rubrics of the Prayer-Book • Unknown

... So subtile and so infectious is this grand passion that one is hardly aware of its presence before it has complete possession of him; and I have known instances of men who, after having associated one evening with Judge Methuen and me, have waked up the next morning filled with ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field

... national sympathies through ennobling historic recollections. He painted the externals of scenery and manners with unrivaled picturesqueness, and embellished all that was generous and brave in the world of chivalry with an infectious enthusiasm. "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," a romance of border chivalry, has a more consistent unity than its successors, and is more faithful to the ancient models. "Marmion" seeks to combine ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... London Company, called "The Unmasked Face of our Colony in Virginia", drew a vivid, though perhaps an exaggerated picture of the unhealthfulness of the climate. "I found the plantations," he said, "generally seated upon meer salt marshes, full of infectious bogs and muddy creeks and lakes, and thereby subjected to all those inconveniences and diseases which are so commonly found in the most unsound and most unhealthy parts of England, whereof every country and climate hath some." It was by no means uncommon, he declared, to see immigrants from ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... the Poet's arrival, he remained in bed and announced in the quavering pencil-strokes of a sick man, that he was suffering from anthrax, which, he might add, was not only painful but infectious. The Poet scrawled across one corner of the note that anthrax was usually fatal, but that, as he himself had twice had it, he would risk taking it a third time in order to be with his friend. Thereupon the Iron King departed to ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy

... appeared on the parapet, and looked about itself. This complaint became infectious. It didn't take "Our Bert" long to be up on the skyline (it is one long grind to ever keep him off it). This was the signal for more Boche anatomy to be disclosed, and this was replied to by all our Alf's and Bill's, until, ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather

... legislation against overcrowding. There must be a maximum number of inhabitants to any tenement, and a really sane law will be far more stringent to secure space and air for young children than for adults. There is little reason, except the possible harbouring of parasites and infectious disease, why five or six adults should not share a cask on a dust heap as a domicile—if it pleases them. But directly children come in we touch the future. The minimum permissible tenement for a maximum of two adults and a very young child is one properly ventilated ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... desperation. Their mad haste was infectious. Men literally tumbled over each other on the trail in their eagerness to put the Passes behind them. Every man carried strapped upon his back as much of a load as it was possible for him to carry, and often times more, with the not infrequent result ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... perhaps no command in this war ever had so small a staff, but there was no officer in East Force who laboured so long or with such concentration and energy and determination as its Chief. This enthusiasm was infectious and spread through all ranks. The sick rate declined, septic sores, from which many men suffered through rough life in the desert on Army rations, got better, and the men showed more interest in their work and were keener on their sport. The full effects had not been wholly ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey

... Alps: a set of madmen that, because their birth doesn't give them the entree of Versailles, are preaching that men should return to a state of nature, great ladies suckle their young like animals, and the peasantry own their land like nobles. Luckily you'll hear little of this infectious talk in Turin: the King stamps out the philosophers like vermin or packs them off to splutter their heresies in Milan or Venice. But to a nobleman mindful of the privileges of his condition there is no more agreeable sojourn in Europe. The wines are delicious, the women—er—accomplished—and ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... virulent case of typhoid. He may die in an hour or he may live until nightfall, but nothing can save him. He will hardly recognize you, I fear, and you can do him no good. It is most infectious, and you are incurring a needless danger. I should strongly recommend you ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... attacking fortifications, and keeping long night-watches, were getting worn-out and broken; they being now old, their bodies less fit for labor, and their courage, also, beginning to give way with the failure of their strength. Besides, it was said that an infectious disease, occasioned by their irregular diet, was prevailing in Caesar's army, and what was of greatest moment, he was neither furnished with money nor provisions, so that in a little time he must needs fall ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... stolen from him and from others, as possible? I wish to get close to him, and I complain that he is not frank; and here I am, afraid to sit down on his bed for fear of getting lice, or catching something infectious; and I am afraid to admit him to my room, and he, coming to me naked, waits, generally in the vestibule, or, if very fortunate, in the ante-chamber. And yet I declare that he is to blame because I cannot enter into intimate relations with him, and ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi

... of the inhabitants of Veii,[14] being exasperated by the infectious influence of the Fidenatian war, both from the tie of kinship—for the Fidenates also were Etruscans—and because the very proximity of the scene of action, in the event of the Roman arms being directed against all their neighbours, urged them on, they sallied forth ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius

... he heard a laugh (he had not thought of her as a girl who laughed) so merry, so infectious that he found himself wondering what caused it as the girl herself came through the doorway to greet him, her rose face radiant, her eyes shining, ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane

... very first years of its great history, came Mills and others of the little Williams College circle; and at once their infectious enthusiasm for the advancement of the kingdom of God was felt throughout the institution. The eager zeal of these young men brooked no delay. In June, 1810, the General Association of Massachusetts met at the neighboring town of Bradford; ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... my fortune's error to vow dutie, To one that bears defiance in her beautie! Sweete poyson, pretious wooe, infectious jewell— Such is a Ladie that is ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... This is an infectious disease, characterized by depression, and usually associated with a catarrhal condition of the mucous membrane. It may affect the respiratory organs or the intestinal canal. There is a marked liability to serious complications, of which pneumonia is ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... doubtless infectious, for the Ann Arbor citizens continued their tree-planting efforts around the outside of the Campus in the spring of 1858, while a group of sixty trees presented to the University were set out inside. The seniors of '58 left a memorial in the shape of ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw

... instability produced by his large and somewhat loosely moulded lips. The salient quality of his personality, as of his appearance, was an ease of proportion almost urbane. His presence in the overcrowded room diffused an infectious affability. Though he spoke to few, he was at once, and irrepressibly, the friend of all. He did not go out of his way to shake a single hand, he confined his conversation, with the old absorption, to the men at his table—personal supporters, for the most part; ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow

... Cincinnati, the foundation of an hereditary order, whose base, from associating with the military the chiefs of the powerful families in each state, would acquire a degree of solidity and strength admitting of any superstructure, he portrayed, in the fervid and infectious language of passion, the dangers to result from the fabric which would be erected on it. The ministers of the United States too in Europe, and the political theorists who cast their eyes towards the west for support to favourite systems, having the privileged orders ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall

... take to reading these pastoral poems, he might take a fancy to become a shepherd and stroll the woods and pastures, singing and piping. What would be still worse, however, would be his turning poet; for that, they say, is both an incurable and infectious malady." ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra



Words linked to "Infectious" :   communicable, infectious disease, transmittable, contractable, infectious mononucleosis, infectious agent, contaminating, contagious, noninfectious, corrupting, infectious polyneuritis, infection, transmissible, infected, infectious hepatitis



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