Infect
verbTo contaminate a person, organism, or system with something harmful such as a disease or malicious software.
How to spell infect
6 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce infect
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does infect mean?
- verbTo contaminate a person, organism, or system with something harmful such as a disease or malicious software.
Infect in a sentence
-
A single cough can infect everyone in the small office.
-
Opening that attachment could infect your laptop with a virus.
Where does infect come from?
Language of origin: Latin
The word comes from the Latin inficere, which literally meant 'to dip into' or 'to stain', built from the prefix in- 'into' and the verb facere 'to make or do'. In Roman use the sense slid from simply dipping something into a liquid toward staining, tainting, or poisoning it, especially with something harmful. English took the word up in the late 1300s through Old French forms, first describing the contamination of air, water, or the body with disease. The same facere root sits inside a huge family of English words, including 'factory', 'perfect', and 'effect', which is why the spelling keeps that -fect ending rather than anything phonetic. Knowing the root is fect, not 'feck', helps fix the single c and the t at the end.
How the word is built
- in- (into)
- fect (from Latin facere: to make, do)
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