virus

Forms

virus m (plural virus)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin vīrus (“juice; venom, poison”).^[2][3][4][1] Medieval Latin added the sense “pus”, which is the sense of the first Spanish records, in 15th-century medical texts.^[5][6] Louis Pasteur gave the word the sense “pathogenic microbe” in 1860, and the present sense dates from about 1900.^[5]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Indo-European *wisós (“fluidity, slime, poison”); its cognates include Sanskrit विष (viṣá, “poison”), Ancient Greek ἰός (iós, “poison”) and Middle Irish fí.^[1][7] De Vaan suggests that the Latin word, a neuter despite its ending, was once an s-stem.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first hits in Spanish are medical: the Arte complida de cirugía (before 1450) speaks of a discharge thin commo sotil virus, and the 1498 translation of Guy de Chauliac's surgery explains that a thin humour se dize virus: o ponçoña “is called virus, or poison”.^[6] An earlier hit, in Juan de Mena (c. 1439), is a quotation of a Latin verse.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Until the 19th century the word was a medical term for pus or a malignant humour, and the Academy entered it with that sense in 1817.^[2][8] Domínguez in 1846 described it as the unknown agent of contagion, and the Academy's 1869 edition added “the material principle of contagious diseases”.^[9][10] Alemany in 1917 described it as a germ due to microbes.^[11] The modern sense, an infectious agent made of nucleic acid and protein that reproduces only inside living cells, followed, and the computer sense is recent.^[4][5] In Puerto Rico it is used for flu and for stomach upsets.^[12]

Timeline

• c. 1439 – Juan de Mena quotes a Latin verse with virus.^[6]
• before 1450 – the Arte complida de cirugía uses the word for a thin discharge.^[6][5]
• 1498 – the Spanish translation of Guy de Chauliac's surgery glosses it as ponçoña “poison”.^[6]
• 1791 – the first record from the Americas, in Quito.^[13]
• 1817 – first entered in the Academy's dictionary.^[2][3]
• 1846 – Domínguez defines it as the agent of contagion.^[9]
• 1860 – Pasteur gives the word the sense “pathogenic microbe”.^[5]
• c. 1900 – the present scientific sense.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A virus: a very simple organism of proteins and nucleic acids that can reproduce only inside specific living cells, using their metabolism.^[4][1]
2. (computing) A computer virus: a program secretly placed in a computer that damages its working or destroys stored data.^[4][1]
3. (dated, medicine) pus or a malignant humour.^[14][8]

Word family

• antivirus
• coronavirus
• viral
• vírico

Related words

• virulencia
• Latin vīrus

Usage notes

The plural is the same as the singular: los virus.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 829
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. virus
4. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. virus
5. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. virus
6. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. virus
7. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 747
9. ^ a b Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 2, 1744
10. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 797
11. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1666
12. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. virus
13. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. virus
14. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. virus