"virus" meaning in English

See virus in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˈvaɪrəs/ Audio: en-us-virus.ogg [US] Forms: virus [singular], viruses [plural]
enPR: vīʹrəs Head templates: {{noun|2=viruses}} [POS TABLE]
  1. A virus is a very small thing that can make people sick by getting into a living cell to copy itself. Synonyms: disease, illness, infection
    Sense id: simple-virus-en-noun-e4rWWam7
  2. A computer virus is software that attacks your computer.
    Sense id: simple-virus-en-noun-lN46QKyv Categories (other): Computing
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "virus",
      "tags": [
        "singular"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "viruses",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "2": "viruses"
      },
      "expansion": "[POS TABLE]",
      "name": "noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [],
      "glosses": [
        "A virus is a very small thing that can make people sick by getting into a living cell to copy itself."
      ],
      "id": "simple-virus-en-noun-e4rWWam7",
      "raw_tags": [
        "countable"
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "disease"
        },
        {
          "word": "illness"
        },
        {
          "word": "infection"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Computing",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A computer virus is software that attacks your computer."
      ],
      "id": "simple-virus-en-noun-lN46QKyv",
      "raw_tags": [
        "countable",
        "computing"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "enpr": "vīʹrəs"
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈvaɪrəs/"
    },
    {
      "sampa": "/\"vaIr@s/"
    },
    {
      "audio": "en-us-virus.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "virus"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "virus",
      "tags": [
        "singular"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "viruses",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "2": "viruses"
      },
      "expansion": "[POS TABLE]",
      "name": "noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "Countable nouns"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A virus is a very small thing that can make people sick by getting into a living cell to copy itself."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "countable"
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "disease"
        },
        {
          "word": "illness"
        },
        {
          "word": "infection"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "Computing",
        "Countable nouns"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A computer virus is software that attacks your computer."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "countable",
        "computing"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "enpr": "vīʹrəs"
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈvaɪrəs/"
    },
    {
      "sampa": "/\"vaIr@s/"
    },
    {
      "audio": "en-us-virus.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "virus"
}

Download raw JSONL data for virus meaning in English (0.8kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-03-26 from the simplewiktionary dump dated 2025-03-21 using wiktextract (fef8596 and 633533e). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.