bacillus
Americannoun
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any rod-shaped or cylindrical bacterium of the genus Bacillus, comprising spore-producing bacteria.
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(formerly) any bacterium.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of bacillus
1880–85; < Late Latin, variant of Latin bacillum (diminutive of baculum ) staff, walking stick
Vocabulary lists containing bacillus
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.
See Examples For:
“The Plague,” the suddenly timely and widely reread Albert Camus novel, is about the random executions carried out by the bubonic plague bacillus, which only makes manifest the inherent precariousness of human existence.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 28, 2020
Robert Koch’s discovery of the contagious tubercle bacillus in 1882 gave rise to the sanatorium movement in Europe and the United States.
From Slate ● Apr. 19, 2020
Caused by the bacillus Mycobacterium leprae, it has affected multitudes over thousands of years — and, as a chronic disease with physical manifestations, has been a source of stigma and ostracism.
From Nature ● Mar. 3, 2019
And in this particular race the winner will probably turn out to be the TB bacillus.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 29, 2012
The present comparative rarity of tuberculosis results in large measure from the fact that the average person now seldom comes into contact with the tubercle bacillus.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
All social classes suffered from the disease, but it had its greatest impact on the poor, for whom overcrowding was the worst and whose homes often lacked sunlight, which kills tuberculosis bacilli.
From Textbooks ● Dec. 14, 2022
Koch complied with a vial swarming with cholera bacilli.
From Scientific American ● Nov. 30, 2020
Cholera, tuberculosis, diphtheria and typhoid bacilli were subsequently identified.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 18, 2020
Is the humid air a forum whence bacilli sense a quorum?
From New York Times ● Jan. 17, 2018
Christian had already been there for months, weighing only about twenty-two pounds, his lungs filled with TB bacilli and an oxygen mask continually strapped over his mouth.
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
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.
