virus
part of speech
noun (a virus, viruses)
meaning for a pupil
1) A virus is a tiny germ, much too small to see, that gets inside living cells and can make people, animals or plants ill. tree →
2) A computer virus is a harmful program that spreads between computers and damages them or steals information. tree →
sense in the lessons
In science and health, viruses cause colds, flu, chickenpox and measles; they spread by coughs, sneezes and dirty hands, so washing hands and covering sneezes helps. Antibiotics do not kill viruses; vaccines can protect against some of them. In computing and online safety, do not open strange links or attachments, because they may carry a computer virus; antivirus software protects computers.
examples
- A cold is caused by a virus. tree →
- Wash your hands to stop viruses spreading. tree →
- The flu vaccine protects you from the flu virus. tree →
- Viruses are much smaller than bacteria. tree →
- Antibiotics don't work against viruses. tree →
- The email had a virus, so Dad deleted it. tree →
- The virus spread quickly through the class. tree →
note
Plural «viruses» (not «virii» or «viri»). A virus is not the same as bacteria: bacteria are living cells and some can be treated with antibiotics; viruses cannot. «Viral» = caused by a virus, or (online) spreading fast. Both «virus» and «germ» are used; germ is a general word.
In the corpora
- Antibiotics kill bacteria but do nothing against colds, which are caused by viruses.
- Warts on people are caused by a virus that passes between people, not by toads; the bumps on a toad are glands.
- Most viruses are much smaller than bacteria and too small to be seen with an ordinary light microscope.
- A computer virus is named after real viruses because it copies itself by getting into a host, a program instead of a cell.
- About 8 percent of human DNA is made of bits of old viruses that got into our ancestors long ago.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «virus» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.