English

girus

Blend of giant + virus; coined by J M Claverie, H Ogata, S Audic, C Abergel, K Suhre, P E Fournier, in a 2006 paper in Virus Research.

Ancient Greek γίγας

Latin gigās

Vulgar Latin *gagās

Old French geant

Middle English geaunt ‘a giant’

English giant

Proto-Indo-European *wisós ‘fluidity, slime, poison’

Proto-Italic *weizos

Latin vīrus ‘poison, slime, venom’

Middle English virus

English virus

The story

Blend of giant + virus; coined by J M Claverie, H Ogata, S Audic, C Abergel, K Suhre, P E Fournier, in a 2006 paper in Virus Research.

noun a type of giant virus, a giant nucleocytoplasmic large DNA virus (giant NCLDV)

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.