virus

Forms

virus n (plural virusuri)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French virus, also modelled on Latin vīrus (“poison, venom”), a neologism with two models.^[2][3][4][1] Scriban gives only the Latin.^[5] French took it from Latin in 1478.^[6] The Latin word, which also meant “slime” and “juice”, is from Proto-Indo-European *wisós (“fluidity, slime, poison”), cognate with Ancient Greek ἰός (iós, “poison”).^[7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Costinescu's dictionary of 1870 records virusŭ as a medical term for the poison of certain diseases, above all the venereal ones.^[8] An older health manual quoted in DLR uses it for the harmful matter that sticks to the walls of the mouth.^[3] Heliade-Rădulescu, also quoted there, compares vice to a killing virus in the body of society.^[3][3]

Semantic evolution

In the 19th century it was the poison or contagious matter of a disease: Scriban and Șăineanu give the virus of rabies.^[5][9][8] With the rise of microbiology it came to name the agent itself, a germ too small for the ordinary microscope that multiplies only inside living cells.^[3][2] The figurative sense, a source of moral harm, goes back to Heliade-Rădulescu and is common in Caragiale and Vlahuță.^[3] From 1988 the press used it for a harmful computer program; in this sense the plural is the masculine viruși.^[10][2]

Timeline

• 1870 – Costinescu's dictionary: the poison of a disease.^[8]
• 1929 – Șăineanu: a substance that passes on a contagious disease.^[9]
• 1974 – the plural viruși in the press.^[3]
• 1988 – the computer virus, in a newspaper.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A virus: a pathogen too small to see under an ordinary microscope, which reproduces only inside living cells and causes infectious diseases; by extension its toxin.^[2][4][1]
2. (figurative) A source of moral harm: virusul corupției “the virus of corruption”.^[2][11]
3. (computing) A self-replicating program made to disrupt computers.^[2][10]

Related words

• antivirus
• Latin vīrus

Usage notes

The plural is virusuri or, especially in computing, the masculine viruși; an old variant is viruș.^[2][4][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1201
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. virus
4. ^ a b c Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1490
5. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 1410
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. virus
7. ^ 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 c Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 702
9. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 698
10. ^ a b c Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. virus
11. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. virus