Etymograph

English

virus

Virus comes from Middle English virus, from Latin vīrus ‘poison, slime’, from Proto-Italic *weizos, from PIE *wisós ‘fluidity, poison’.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*wisós‘fluidity, slime, poison’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*weizosreconstructed
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEvīrus‘poison, slime, venom’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500virus
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1890same form

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*wisós‘fluidity, slime, poison’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*weizosreconstructed
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEvīrus‘poison, slime, venom’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500virus
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1890same form

Earliest quotation: 1890, Aluísio Azevedo: “Brazil, that inferno where every budding flower and every…”

The story

First use in the computer context by David Gerrold in his 1972 book When HARLIE Was One.

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *weys- ‘to raise, increase’

weasel, whisk, visceral, ooze, woozy, viscera, 7 more

through Latin vīrus ‘poison, slime, venom’

virulent, virion, 2 more

Today it means

noun A submicroscopic, non-cellular structure that consists of a core of DNA or RNA surrounded by a protein coat, that requires a living host cell to replicate, and that sometimes causes disease in the host organism (such agents are often classed as nonliving infectious particles and less often as microorganisms).

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

Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *wisós / virus

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