Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective

bacillus

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Remove ads
See also: Bacillus and Bacilli

English

Wikispecies has information on:

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin bacillus (little staff, wand), diminutive of baculum (stick, staff, walking stick).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /bæˈsɪl.əs/
  • Audio (US):(file)

Noun

bacillus (plural bacilli)

  1. Any of various rod-shaped, spore-forming aerobic bacteria in the genus Bacillus, some of which cause disease.
    • 1895, H. G. Wells, The Stolen Bacillus:
      'This again,' said the Bacteriologist, slipping a glass slide under the microscope, 'is a preparation of the celebrated Bacillus of cholera - the cholera germ.'
    • 1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “(please specify the page)”, in The Poison Belt [], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:
      "You will conceive a bunch of grapes," said he, "which are covered by some infinitesimal but noxious bacillus.
  2. Any bacilliform (rod-shaped) bacterium.
  3. (figurative, by extension) Something which spreads like bacterial infection.
    • 1934 [2018], Gottfried Haberler quoted in Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 71:
      The “bacillus of boom or depression,” he wrote, travels freely “from country to country.”

Derived terms

Translations

Anagrams

Remove ads

Latin

Etymology

Diminutive of baculus (staff, walking stick).

Pronunciation

Noun

bacillus m (genitive bacillī); second declension

  1. alternative form of bacillum

Declension

Second-declension noun.

Descendants

  • French: bacille
  • Galician: bacelo
  • Russian: баци́лла f (bacílla)
  • Translingual: Bacillus (learned)

References

  • bacillus”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
  • bacillus in Ramminger, Johann (16 July 2016 (last accessed)), Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700, pre-publication website, 2005-2016
Remove ads

Wikiwand - on

Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.

Remove ads