superspreader
Americannoun
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Pathology. a person who spreads a contagious disease more easily and widely than the average infected person.
About forty percent of the superspreaders had no symptoms of the virus.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of superspreader
First recorded in 1970–75
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Alfonsi has reported on a range of subjects, including the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, a Covid superspreader event, the jailhouse death of Jeffrey Epstein and student survivors of the Parkland, Fla., school shooting.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 27, 2026
“Those areas in Argentina are the areas where there have been a couple of very rare superspreader events, where not only is there person-to-person transmission, but person-to-person transmission involving scores of people,” he said.
From MarketWatch • May 4, 2026
"This looks like a superspreader event, with ongoing spread within the halls of residence in the universities," Hopkins added.
From Barron's • Mar. 19, 2026
"And the fact that superspreader events play such a significant role in the early stages of an epidemic supports the hypothesis that the real network of contacts is, like many other social networks, highly heterogeneous."
From Science Daily • Jan. 9, 2024
When called to a superspreader flat, he and his team find truly revolting spectacles - hundreds of bedbugs crawling over each other, in clothes, in the floorboards, behind pictures.
From BBC • Oct. 3, 2023
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
