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.
Scientists postulate that the bacillus originated in some lower animal and jumped to humans.
From Washington Post • Mar. 23, 2022
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
From that point, Kinyoun was at war with more than a bacillus.
From Nature • Apr. 23, 2019
And so – not without a certain delight in my own suffering, of course – I sat on the couch, a sniffling bacillus tucked cosily on either side.
From The Guardian • Dec. 13, 2015
There is also another kind of plague to worry about: the plague bacillus is endemic all over the Earth.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
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.
