infect

«infect» in Mova's school dictionary: To give someone a disease by passing germs to them — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 4 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

verb (infect, infects, infected, infecting)

meaning for a pupil

1) To give someone a disease by passing germs to them. tree →

2) For germs to get into a cut or part of the body and make it sore and ill. tree →

3) For a computer virus to get into a computer. tree →

4) To spread a feeling to others, as in «Her laughter infected everyone». tree →

sense in the lessons

In science and health lessons: germs (bacteria and viruses) infect people; washing hands stops them spreading. In safety: clean a cut so it doesn't get infected. In computing: viruses can infect computers. Phrases: infected cut, infect with.

examples

• Wash your hands so you don't infect others. tree →
• Clean the cut so it doesn't get infected. tree →
• The virus infected half the class. tree →
• A computer virus infected Dad's laptop. tree →
• Her giggles infected the whole room. tree →
• Mosquitoes can infect people with malaria. tree →

note

Regular verb. Noun: infection; adjective: infectious (can spread, catching). Not the same as «affect» (to change something) or «inject». In maths problems on spreading illness, one infected person may infect several others, so numbers can double quickly.

In the corpora

• Cat bites often get infected because their teeth are thin and go deep.
• A cut that becomes red, hot, swollen or full of pus may be infected, so tell a parent.
• A wet cast can rub and infect the skin under it, so a cast must be kept dry.
• A blister that becomes red, hot, swollen or full of yellow pus may be infected and needs a pharmacist or GP.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «infect» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.