infective
Americanadjective
adjective
-
capable of causing infection
-
a less common word for infectious
Other Word Forms
- infectively adverb
- infectiveness noun
- infectivity noun
- uninfective adjective
Etymology
Origin of infective
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English word from Medieval Latin word infectīvus. See infect, -ive
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.
He is suffering from infective endocarditis, an infection in the inner lining of the heart or its valves which affects one in 30,000 people in the UK.
From BBC
Mr Golombek described the medical cause of death as "multi organ failure as a result of infective endocarditis and hospital acquired pneumonia".
From BBC
“And it may be that this particular summer, we have just seen a lot more of a faster churn of some of the variants, and they’ve just been a little bit more infective,” Hudson said.
From Los Angeles Times
CJD is the most prominent of the handful of diseases, all fatal, that result when prions, proteins of uncertain function that are abundant in the brain, misfold into an infective form that spreads widely.
From Science Magazine
The disease is rare, however, people with previous valve surgeries, heart valve abnormalities, artificial valves, congenital heart defects or previous infective endocarditis have a greater risk of developing it.
From Science Daily
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.
