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Infectious   Listen
adjective
Infectious  adj.  
1.
Having qualities that may infect; communicable or caused by infection; pestilential; epidemic; as, an infectious fever; infectious clothing; infectious water; infectious vices. "Where the infectious pestilence."
2.
Corrupting, or tending to corrupt or contaminate; vitiating; demoralizing. "It (the court) is necessary for the polishing of manners... but it is infectious even to the best morals to live always in it."
3.
(Law) Contaminating with illegality; exposing to seizure and forfeiture. "Contraband articles are said to be of an infectious nature."
4.
Capable of being easily diffused or spread; sympathetic; readily communicated; as, infectious mirth. "The laughter was so genuine as to be infectious."
Synonyms: See Contagious.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Infectious" Quotes from Famous Books



... cowardice is infectious; but then argument is, on the other hand, a great emboldener; and so when each had said his say, my mother made them a speech. She would not, she declared, lose money that belonged to her fatherless ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... The word is not accented on the first syllable. Indeed, it might just as well be "inuberance." It does not long to make an impression or, in vulgar phrase, to "get a rise"; but tends to be self-contained. It is not boisterousness. It is generous and infectious, while boisterousness is inclined to be selfish and repellent. Most of us would rather spend a week among a crowd of mummies than in a gang of boisterous young blades. For boisterousness is only a degenerate exuberance, drunk and on the rampage. The royal old musician and poet ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler

... my house since Netta was born, that's the trouble she brought with her; I'd as soon have an undertaker. Send you for a doctor, and everybody in the house is seure to be ill. He's infectious. Excuse me, Miss Gwynne, whilst I go and ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... found her brother whistling the blithe air of "Green Sleeves," cutting strange capers, in imitation of the morris-dancers, and whirling his cudgel over his head instead of a kerchief. The gaiety of the day seemed infectious, and to have seized even him. People stared to see Black Jem, or Surly Jem, as he was indifferently called, so joyous, and wondered what it could mean. He then fell to singing a snatch of a local ballad at that time in vogue ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... groves of beech, birch, ash, and fir-trees. There are several vessels lying at anchor close to the shore; one bears the melancholy symbol of disease, the yellow flag; she is a passenger- ship, and has the smallpox and measles among her crew. When any infectious complaint appears on board, the yellow flag is hoisted, and the invalids conveyed to the cholera-hospital or wooden building, that has been erected on a rising bank above the shore. It is surrounded with palisadoes ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... at the Villa Irma, for the detective seemed somehow to have given place to the courtier, and so merry was his mood, so infectious his good nature, that even madame came under the spell of it. She sang with him, she even danced a Russian polka with him; she sat with him at dinner, and flirted with him in the salon afterward; and when the time came for her to retire, it was he ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... let your companions regard you with the contempt and abhorrence you so richly merit!" Here, needless to say, the whole school glared at poor Coggs with as much virtuous indignation as they could summon up at such short notice; for contempt is very infectious when ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... short time afterwards he lost Mohammed's sister ("my dear wife the princess," he used to say solemnly), by whom he had had a daughter—mother and child both dying within three days of each other from some infectious fever. He left the country, which this cruel loss had made unbearable to him. Thus ended the first and adventurous part of his existence. What followed was so different that, but for the reality of sorrow which remained with him, this strange part must have resembled a dream. ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... Infectious and contagious diseases may be conveyed by the clothing. Hence, special care must be taken that all clothing in contact with sick people is burned or properly disinfected. Children especially are susceptible to scarlet fever, diphtheria, ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... did. After a moment's bewildered surprise he threw back his handsome blond head and gave vent to a great, deep infectious roar of mirth that brought the Spalpeens tumbling up the stairs in defiance of ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber

... Bathe in mirth. Frolic in some sunshine daily, even if you live in Pittsburgh and have to make your own sunshine. Make fun, don't always buy it. You can cure disease and kill the Devil with laughter. Cultivate an infectious laugh. Mirth makes work easy. Read humor and learn to tell it. Practice telling a good, funny story. Be a quick wit. There is a bright side to everything in this world, even to a dark-lantern. The end of the film is sure to be jolly. Good cheer attracts good luck. Cheer up. If you haven't ...
— Supreme Personality • Delmer Eugene Croft

... seized the standers-by. The queen above the rest, by nature good, 310 (The pattern form'd of perfect womanhood) For tender pity wept: when she began, Through the bright quire the infectious virtue ran. All dropt their tears, even the contended maid; And thus among themselves they softly said: What eyes can suffer this unworthy sight! Two youths of royal blood, renown'd in fight, The mastership ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... the bacteriologists further discovered that the typhoid bacillus was present in water which was not infectious, and in persons who were not ill, or had ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford

... reserves of credulity before I could swallow them. So improbable are the incidents in one or two of them that I am inclined to believe that they must be founded on fact. However that may be, their author is an expert in his subject, and writes with a vigour that is very bracing and infectious. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 7, 1917. • Various

... apt to esteem that man most human who has his qualities in a certain exaggeration, whose courage is passionate, whose generosity is without deliberation, whose just action is without premeditation, whose spirit runs toward its favorite objects with an infectious and reckless ardor, whose wisdom is no child of slow prudence. We love Achilles more than Diomedes, and Ulysses not at all. But these are standards left over from a ruder state of society: we should have passed by this time the Homeric stage of mind—should have heroes suited to our age. Nay, ...
— On Being Human • Woodrow Wilson

... recorded by Felix Robertson of Tennessee (Philadelphia, 1805), found vent in an unparalleled blaze of enthusiastic religion, which spread with lightning-like rapidity in almost every part of Tennessee and Kentucky, and in various parts of Virginia, in 1800, being distinguished by uncontrollable and infectious muscular contractions, gesticulations, crying, laughing, shouting, and singing. To similar epidemics are attributed the uncontrollable acts which, till late in the nineteenth century, were a feature of North American camp meetings for divine service in the open air, and which exhibited ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... only be very agreeable to the patient's feelings, as there is usually great irritation and itching of the skin, but it will, likewise, be an important means of preventing the dead skin, which is highly infectious, and which comes off partly in flakes and partly floats about the air as dust, from infecting other persons. The plan is an excellent one, and cannot be too ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse

... awkward pause. The lady passengers moved closer to each other; the Washoe husband looked abstractedly at the fire; and the tall man apparently turned his eyes inward for self-support at this emergency. But Miggles's laugh, which was very infectious, broke the silence. "Come," she said briskly, "you must be hungry. Who'll bear a hand to help me ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... for some minutes looking at his audience with a triumphant smile. First a murmur of excited voices arose, and then somebody proposed three cheers, which were given and repeated until the levium dome rang with the reverberations. Nobody knew exactly why he was cheering, but the infectious enthusiasm carried everything before it. Then the crowd began to ask questions, addressed not to Cosmo but to one another. The wildest suggestions were made. One woman who had left some treasured heirlooms in a Fifth Avenue mansion demanded of her ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss

... her figure indecorously beautiful under its close French draperies. And yet if she had let Lawrence alone he would have gone over to the other camp. How they laughed, three out of the four of them, and what marvellous good tea they put away! The little Stafford girl had a particularly infectious laugh, a real child's giggle which doubled her up in her chair. Lawrence had no desire to join in the school treat and barnyard conversation, but he would have liked to sit ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde

... herself adapted her successful book for the stage and has selected from her novel the most telling incidents, infectious comedy and homely sentiment for the play, and the result is thoroughly delightful. ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Melodramatic Farce in Four Acts • Paul Dickey

... returned Nigel, with a laugh. "Good-night," he added, shaking hands with his host and suppressing another yawn, for Moses' face, even in the extreme distance, was irresistibly infectious! ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne

... that Louise was suffering from an infectious disease; the queen's physician confirmed this opinion, and cautioned the ladies of the court against any communication with the poor invalid. No special command was therefore necessary to keep the maids of honor away from the prisoner; she ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... self-defence. Any one stricken with this painful and ugly malady is confined to the ends of villages, denied the use of paths and highways, and condemned to transport himself between his house and coco-patch by water only, his very footprint being held infectious. Fe'efe'e, being a creature of marshes and the sequel of malarial fever, is not original in atolls. On the single isle of Makatea, where the lagoon is now a marsh, the disease has made a home. Many suffer: they are excluded (if Mr. Wilmot be right) from ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of Forli. He tells us exactly how the thing was contrived, with a precision of detail which we could wish to see emulated by other contemporaries of his who so lightly throw out accusations of poisoning. He informs us that a deadly and infectious disease was rampant in Forli in that year 1499, and that, before dispatching her letter to the Pope, the Countess caused it to be placed upon the body of one who was sick of this infection—thus hoping to ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini

... leaf and blossom, rollicked up the street. It seemed almost as though the frolicsome atmosphere of spring had permeated even the shell of the hermit and got into his system, for there was something incorrigibly boyish and youthful about him this morning. His cheerful smile was infectious. ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... him a dread and infectious disease which Charley caught from him, and in twelve hours after his escape she was very, very ill. I nursed her myself, with tenderest care, bringing her back to her old childish likeness again. Then the disease came ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... consumption have been exploded, but it is acknowledged by all, to be an infectious disease. As such, ignorant people do not understand how to escape it; indeed, until anti-spitting laws are more universal and more rigidly enforced, every one may be exposed to these deadly germs. They respect neither race lines nor intellectual grades. The Negro, ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... laughter. It was infectious. There was no help for it. The two inspectors joined in the merriment, and the last of my anger was ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster

... be a matter of surprise that so many of the most finely-educated artists mentioned in this book are found to have been residents of the city mentioned. Affected by its all-pervading, its infectious, so to say, musical spirit, they eagerly embraced the many opportunities offered for culture; and their noble achievements are only such as would have been made by others of the same race residing in other sections of the country, had the latter enjoyed there (as, alas! ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter

... Potter is a most interesting Negro character—one of the most genial personalities of the Old South that the interviewer has met anywhere. His humor is infectious, his voice boisterous, but delightful, and his uproarious laugh just such as one delights to listen to. And his narrations seem to ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... William Hall (British Medical Journal, October 14, 1905), speaking from wide and accurate knowledge, "were superior in weight, in teeth, and in general bodily development, and they seemed less susceptible to infectious disease. Yet these Jews were overcrowded, they took little exercise, and their unsanitary environment was obvious. The fact was, their children were much better nourished. The pregnant Jewess was more cared for, and no doubt supplied better nutriment to the foetus. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... enough of that joyous, cheerful spirit of love which is its main spring. Nobody can become acquainted with our soldiers in any land, without being almost immediately struck with their extraordinary gladness, and this joy is in itself one of the most infectious and influential elements of the Army's success. But if this be so, amid the comparatively well to do, judge of what its results are likely to be amongst the poorest and most wretched! To those who have never known bright days, the mere sight of a happy ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... the lower parts of their ears; their bluish noses stood out between their hollow cheeks, which were chinked with deep wrinkles; the skin of their bodies was too large for their muscles, and was hidden beneath a slate-coloured dust; their lips were glued to their yellow teeth; they exhaled an infectious odour; they might have been taken for ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... of San Juan Hill, and Gus, who was himself notoriously brave, scarcely knew which to admire the more, Ensal's searching words that inspired the men for that world-famous dash or Earl's enthusiastic, infectious daring on the actual scene ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... among us, upon our earth, within reach of our eyes, our hands, our thoughts and our researches. There was a time when lightning, epidemics and earthquakes were attributed without distinction to the wrath of Heaven. Nowadays, when we are more or less familiar with the source of the great infectious diseases, the hand of Providence knows them no more; and, though we are still ignorant of the nature of electricity and the laws that regulate seismic shocks, we no longer dream, while waiting to learn more about them, of looking for their causes in the judgment or anger of an imaginary ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck

... not remote future thousands of human beings will owe to the Turkish bath not only an immunity from disease in general, but also an escape from the horrors of a premature death from hydrophobia, the poison of snake bite, or the slower action of infectious disease. ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen

... some such drastic measures necessary at a time when the effect of unsanitary conditions was not very much thought of by individuals. Upon this point the state of the Pest House on the Warren, set apart for the reception of persons suffering from infectious diseases, was reported upon in the following terms; "One of the rooms had been used as an henhouse, but in other respects clean." For the credit of those receiving the report, however, it should be added that it was "Ordered that the room ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston

... not worse than that of many another man, had found him out. He had done wrong. He admitted it, but this monstrous judgment on him was out of all proportion to his offence. And, like some malignant infectious disease, retribution would fall, not on him alone, but on those nearest him, on his innocent mother and sister. It was ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... his lips to whistle, "Jimmy's" smiles are singularly infectious. The Protector's yacht is not a missionary, but merely, as her name signifies, a messenger; but the Protector does not forbid the hymnal. "Jimmy" has one, and as he studies the pious poems, for he reads fluently, whistles appropriately. ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... not lacking, nor parental affection; the fault lay hidden in an unknown cause, in a lack of protection against a dire peril of which men were quite unconscious. It is now a matter of common knowledge that infectious diseases, especially those of intestinal origin, are those most destructive to infant life. Intestinal disorders which impede nutrition, and produce toxins at an age when the delicate tissues are most sensitive to them, were responsible for nearly the entire death-roll. These were ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori

... themselves on having made a 'discovery.' They boasted of it. Gradually the name of the Bon Vieux Temps became known. By the time that Little-Flower-of-the-Wood had had enough, there was a supper clientele without her. Folly is infectious, and in Paris there are always people catching a fresh craze. Dupont began to put up his prices, and levied a charge on the waiter for the privilege of waiting at supper. The rest of the history is more grave ... Comment, monsieur? Since ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... another bearing of biological knowledge—a more practical one in the ordinary sense of the word. Consider the theory of infectious disease. Surely that is of interest to all of us. Now the theory of infectious disease is rapidly being elucidated by biological study. It is possible to produce, from among the lower animals, examples of devastating ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley

... at present two prominent theories in regard to the infections which produce disease. The first is based upon chemical processes, the second upon the multiplication of living organisms. The chemical theory maintains that after the infectious element has been received into the body it acts as a ferment, and gives rise to certain morbid processes, upon the principle of catalysis. The theory of organisms, or the germ theory, maintains that the infectious elements are living organisms, which, being received ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various

... character of the one, and the trust reposed by her late father in the other, authorized them to be present upon the occasion. Eveline naturally blushed, as she advanced two steps to receive the handsome youthful envoy; and her bashfulness seemed infectious, for it was with some confusion that Damian went through the ceremony of saluting the hand which she extended towards him in token of welcome. Eveline was under ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... this way, Choulette lighted one of those long and tortuous Italian cigars, which are pierced with a straw. He drew from it several puffs of infectious vapor, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... upon the familiar scenes of his boyhood with regret, would be to carry a greater amount of anguish to his destiny. The destroyer was upon him; his grasp was firm and painful. He might live a life of rectitude; but his principles and affections would be unfixed. It would be like an infectious robe encircling him,—a disease which he never could eradicate, so that he might feel he was not an empty vessel among honourable men. When men depicted their villains, moving in the grateful spheres of life, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... learned the path to freedom and trod it with a light heart. Algernon and Percival enjoyed a long succession of diseases, contagious and infectious, and each attack meant a holiday of varying but always of considerable length. Under ordinary conditions Leah might have been forced to nurse her brothers through their less serious disorders, but there was a butcher shop on the ground ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly

... means so much, that you need not stoop to flatter me. The very vestments of you Levites should exhale infectious humility; and I especially need exhortations against pride, my besetting sin. I built this chapel, not because I am good, but in order to grow better. Every dwelling has its room in which the inmates gather to eat, to study, to work, to sleep; why not to pray, the most ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... local expression of a constitutional disease. Cutting out the chancre will not cure the disease, because, as stated, the germs are already in the system. The time between the contraction of the disease (the infectious intercourse) and the appearance of the chancre is called the Incubation Period. The time between the appearance of the chancre and the appearance of the rash on the body (the rash looks like a measles rash and ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson

... that a moderate use of alcoholic liquors, continued over a number of years, produces a gradual deterioriation of the tissues of the body, and hastens the changes which old age brings, thus increasing the average liability to disease (especially to infectious disease,) and shortening the duration ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation

... The market-place was quite empty, and no one came near the one solitary caravan—no one except an officer of the Board of Health, to inquire what was the cause of the delay, and whether the sick woman was suffering from any infectious complaint. People passed down the market-place and went to the various shops, but no one came near Rosalie and ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton

... Major infectious diseases: typhoid fever, malaria, leishmaniasis (cutaneous), schistosomiasis, rabies overall degree of risk: ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... work was started, and would often throw off his coat and take a hand in it. Fair Maria laid his table and made his bed, and he was not afraid of showing his kindness for her. His good humor was infectious and made everything pleasanter. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... indefatigably, assists at every operation, assumes personal charge of infectious cases, takes temperatures, waits on the table, and prays all night by the dying. Mr. Van Husen, a young American who was helping her at that time, told me that if a boy died in the hospital and was ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... Anne, who, at Grace's first words, had stepped to the chiffonier, took out a beribboned bundle, and stood holding it toward the stout girl. Another moment and Miriam had returned bearing her offering. "I wish you a merry June," declared Miriam with an infectious giggle that was echoed by the others. Then Elfreda opened the package from Miriam, which contained a Japanese silk kimono similar to one of her own that her roommate had greatly admired. Grace's package contained a pair of ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower

... owing to the prevalence of an infectious disease; still extraordinary numbers of the English nobility thronged to London, in order to see the King, who took up his residence at Greenwich. It is computed that there were 10,000 people at court. James felt infinitely happy amidst the homage which clergy and laity vied ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... doors and windows, or it portends a 'south-easter', i.e. a hurricane, and Capetown disappears in impenetrable clouds of dust. But this wind coming off the hills and fields of ice, is the Cape doctor, and keeps away cholera, fever of every sort, and all malignant or infectious diseases. Most of them are unknown here. Never was so healthy a place; but the remedy is of the heroic nature, and very disagreeable. The stones rattle against the windows, and omnibuses are blown ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon

... beside Miss Judy at the wheel, laughing with her at some joke; at Sahwah and Undine sitting together in the canoe right behind the launch, leaning luxuriously back against their paddles, which they were using as back rests; heard Jean Lawrence's infectious laugh floating back on the breeze; and she began to regret that she had stayed at home. She found she was no longer in the mood to finish her letter; she lingered on the pier after the floating caravan had disappeared from view behind ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey

... Her happiness was infectious. Cuthbert felt more like a light-hearted boy than ever he had done in his life before. His lively little companion, clinging to his arm and chattering like a magpie, effectually drove away all grave thoughts. ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... 230.—Nothing is so infectious as example, and we never do great good or evil without producing the like. We imitate good actions by emulation, and bad ones by the evil of our nature, which shame imprisons ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld

... Its course in the individual case, like its progress through the community, was very rapid. The person attacked either died within two or three days or even less, or showed signs of recovery within the same period. The proportion of cases which resulted fatally was extremely large; the infectious character of the disease quite remarkable. It was, in fact, an extremely violent epidemic attack, the most violent in history, of the bubonic plague, with which we have unfortunately become ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney

... turned often with decided motion, that was Warwick, she thought, while the quietest sleeper of the three betrayed his presence by laughing once with the low-toned merriment she recognized as Moor's. These discoveries left her a prey to visions of grimy strollers, maudlin farm-servants, and infectious emigrants in dismal array. A strong desire to cry out possessed her for a moment, but was checked; for with all her sensitiveness Sylvia had much common sense, and that spirit which hates to be conquered even by a natural fear. She remembered her scornful repudiation ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott

... of carefully selecting the birds which will he given a place in the flock, retaining only those which are healthy and vigorous, and rejecting the weaklings and physically unfit. The next step is to keep the birds in a high state of vitality through proper management and keep contagious and infectious diseases away by adopting ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.

... within a circuit of a few miles, localities in which, during the last few years, scrofula, small-pox, measles, and typhus fever have left their ravages; and which, with proper care and cleanliness, might, I firmly believe, have escaped. But that disease, and especially infectious disease, haunts all ill-drained, ill-cleansed, and ill-ventilated places in both town and country, there are now few intelligent persons that require to be convinced; and the question has come to be with the well-informed part of the public, as it has long been the question with medical ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various

... some mental collapse; that sort of thing is always so painful. But I know of a first-rate place for rest-cures; I think it would be wise if I just casually dropped the name of it to Mr Robert, in case. And this last craze seems so terribly infectious. Fancy Mrs Weston dabbling in palmistry! It is too comical, but I hope I did not hurt her feelings by suggesting that Peppino or you wrote the Manual, It is dangerous to make little jokes ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... silver, and a little feeling was growing in the air ... doubt and a bit of what might have begun to be fear ... when suddenly the man began to laugh. It was abrupt and it rang harshly at first, but grew with every moment warmer and more infectious, so that Caroline, though she felt that she was in some way the cause of it, joined in it finally, in spite ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... moreover, with an opponent who cannot keep his temper. You will beat him, no doubt, but anger is infectious, and, unless you are blessed with extraordinary self-command, the risk of catching it is ...
— Round Games with Cards • W. H. Peel

... for them,' she said, 'in Manchester warehouses, or Yorkshire spinning-mills. The knights-errant are all on the stock exchange, and the poets write for Punch.' And I could not help laughing, and she laughed too, and her laugh was so infectious I could not get clear of it, and so poured my next cup of ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... task to M. Fortin, a young chemist major, who in 1807 had by his indefatigable courage and perseverance saved from certain death nine hundred sick, abandoned, without physicians or surgeons, in a hospital near Dantzic, and nearly all suffering from an infectious malady. In the month of March, 1810 (what follows is an extract from the letter of M. Fortin to his master and friend M. Cadet de Gassicourt), the Duchess of Montebello, in passing through Strasburg, wished to see again the husband she ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... nothing in heaven or hell. She radiated something very like hope and courage about her, and talked as though the world were a glorious place and everybody in it kind and beautiful. Her optimism was certainly infectious. ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood

... had sufficient matter or evidence to impeach the earl of high treason. Nevertheless the house resolved to impeach him without a division. When he appeared in the house of lords next day, he found himself deserted by his brother peers as infectious; and retired with signs of confusion. Prior and Harley having been examined by such of the committee as were justices of the peace for Middlesex, Mr. Walpole informed the house that matters of such importance appeared in Prior's examination, that he was directed to move ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... something so infectious in the rollicking tunes which Captain Jim played that very soon Marshall Elliott's feet began to twitch. He had been a noted dancer in his youth. Presently he started up and held out his hands to Leslie. Instantly ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... 'The Waddy is an infectious disease herself "more quickly caught than the plague and the taker runs presently mad." I lived next door to her at the Elysium, three years ago. Now see, you won't give us the least trouble, and I've ornamented ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling

... not think that a necessarily undesirable condition of life, of mind, of the physical world about us. 'Tis the dead things, we may remind ourselves, that after all are most entirely at rest, and might reasonably hold that motion (vicious, fallacious, infectious motion, as Plato inclines to think) covers all that is best worth being. And as for philosophy—mobility, versatility, the habit of thought that can most adequately follow the subtle movement of things, that, surely, were the secret of wisdom, of the true knowledge ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater

... and so infectious is this grand passion that one is hardly aware of its presence before it has complete possession of him; and I have known instances of men who, after having associated one evening with Judge Methuen and me, have waked up the next morning filled with the incurable enthusiasm ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field

... button. Description: second red waistcoat. Parents living: both. Infectious diseases: ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne

... none who are lame, crooked, or deformed, or that have the evil, rupture, or any infectious ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales

... ever up to now answered so well for holding out. That's HER tribute to the ideal—we each have our own. It's her romance—and it seems to me better on the whole than mine. To have it in Paris too," he explained—"on this classic ground, in this charged infectious air, with so sudden an intensity: well, it's more than she expected. She has had in short to recognise the breaking out for her of a real affinity—and with everything to enhance ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... floor, with his head right through the opening for the staircase, and see along the upper floor under the beds! These squatters are the curse of the community. It is among them that fever and kindred infectious diseases break out; it is among them that wretched couples are seen bent double with rheumatism and affections of the joints caused by damp. They have often been known to remain so long, generation after generation, ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies

... one of their officers was affected by the anticipation of coming disaster, in a way their own hearts are incapable of estimating. You understand me, Charles? I would not have them too much discouraged by an example that may become infectious." ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... the United States, either as a Volunteer, or in the Regular service, during the war for the suppression of the rebellion, shall be eligible for appointment up to the age of twenty-four years. They must be at least five feet in height, and free from any infectious or immoral disorder, and, generally, from any deformity, disease, or infirmity which may render them unfit for arduous military service. They must be proficient in Reading and Writing; in the elements of English Grammar; in Descriptive Geography, particularly of our own country, and in the History ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper

... she is here, all the same. Her brother came home ill from school, and the others had all to be sent off at once in case it was something infectious. She telegraphed to know if she might come ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... most surprised and shocked of any in the room, Phipps yawned. The failing was infectious, and the gathering having, as you can easily understand, talked itself weary, dispersed on trivial pretences. But not to sleep immediately. Directly Dangle was alone he began, with infinite disgust, to scrutinise his darkling eye, for he was a neat-minded little man in spite of ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells

... such humour in Lempriere's look as he spoke of the muscadella that the Queen questioned him closely upon Buonespoir's raid; and so infectious was his mirth, as he told the tale, that Elizabeth, though she stamped her foot ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... An infectious or communicable disease is one caused by the admission of some form of living matter into the body of a human being or of a lower animal. All diseases are clearly not communicable in the sense that they are due to the presence of living things. Indigestion, for instance, I can not ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... morning, after prayers, the Doctor addressed the whole school. There were several cases of fever in different houses, he said; but Dr. Robertson, after the most careful examination, had assured him that it was not infectious, and that if proper care were taken, there could be no reason for stopping the school-work at present. The examinations were just coming on, and it would be very unadvisable to break up now. However, any boys who chose to do so were ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... SWIFT MACNEILL'S smile infectious. It illumined with something of saintly halo the depressed figure of Dr. BARTON, who, again breaking his vow of silence, confessed that yesterday he had been enrolled as Member of an Organisation in Ulster ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various

... have a Prospect of my Orchard, and my little Birds. Here, in the farthest Nook of the Meadow, is a little Banquetting House; there I sup sometimes in Summer, and I make Use of it, as an Infirmary, if any of my Family be taken ill, with any infectious Disease. ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... holy shrines as the pest spots of the world. We generally have experienced in Western Europe that all violent epidemics arrive from the East. The great breadth of the Atlantic boundary would naturally protect us from the West, but infectious disorders, such as plague, cholera, small-pox, etc., may be generally tracked throughout their gradations from their original nests. Those nests are in the East, where the heat of the climate acting upon the filth of semi-savage communities ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... the ruins and fortresses of mediaeval romance. And not only English gardens, but those of Europe generally, though to a less degree, passed through these stages of development, for no disease is so infectious as fashion. ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... rang out a second time, hearty and infectious. "There are two good ones, and two ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray

... keep those poor children and yourself away! We have had an aweful infectious fever rageing in the place, which it was thought to be cured, but it's on the break out again-several deaths, Hartledon and Maude (married of course) have gone out of its reach and I'm thinking ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... of his discourse, the speaker wrought himself up into such a religious fury that it became infectious, and cries and groans resounded on all sides; and the prayers poured out by repentant sinners for mercy and pardon were heart-rending. The speaker at length became speechless from exhaustion, and stopping suddenly ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... issues from the mouth and nostrils, as if from the shaft of a chimney. We have tried the said smoke, but after having put it into our mouths, it seemed as if there were ground pepper in them, so hot is it." In the month of December the inhabitants of Stadacone were attacked by an infectious disease which proved to be the scurvy. "This malady spread so rapidly in our vessels that by the middle of February out of our 110 men there were but ten in good health." Neither prayers, nor orisons, nor vows ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... when Snorky's infectious laugh had restored his sense of humor, Bedelle, Incorporated took up the transaction of business again,—the discussion of the profits having by mutual consent been adjourned to a ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson

... privately wrote home to their family doctor, telling him how strangely happy Ormond was, and asking him if he could advise anything. He wrote back that if Ormond was so very happy they had better not do anything to cure him; that the disease was not infectious, and was seldom fatal." ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells

... nations break the bonds of disease. Last year in Africa, AIDS killed ten times as many people as war did. My budget invests $150 million more in the fight against this and other infectious killers. Today, I propose a tax credit to speed the development of vaccines for diseases like malaria, TB and AIDS. I ask the private sector and our partners around the world to join us in embracing this cause. Together, we can save millions ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William J. Clinton • William J. Clinton

... short and sharp, as became a woman much given to economy in words. At all events, the girl listened in silence while mademoiselle explained that even two women might, in some minute degree, help France at this moment. For patriotism, like courage, is infectious; and it is a poor heart that hurries to abandon ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman

... was playing an infectious two-step. At the girl's nod Jean beckoned one of her party, a tall, handsome boy who throughout the subsequent dance babbled into Lydia's ear an incessant paean in praise ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace

... in her own predictions. She told Mme. Mounier (who is a Levantine) that she would never have a child, and was forbidden the house accordingly, and the prophecy has 'come true.' Superstition is wonderfully infectious here. The fact is that the Arabs are so intensely impressionable, and so cowardly about inspiring any ill-will, that if a man looks askance at them it is enough to make them ill, and as calamities are not infrequent, there is always some mishap ready to be ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... won the Derby, a famous English race," she said; and then, simply because the landlord's love of talking was infectious, "And does the Count own horses, too?" ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... excepting Captain Martyn, who gave me a sly look from the corner of his eye. "Rocked in the cradle of the deep," they had become like children again, and were ready to credit anything that was told in a confident manner. But Doctor Holmes's digressions are infectious. ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns

... infectious; and Mrs. Hallam's spirit ran as high as his own. She was smiling cheerfully ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... card from the table, threw up his chin, and broke into one of his infectious laughs. I reached over and took it from his hand. ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith

... direct to yours. It was as catching as fire, as exhilarating as the chime of sleigh-bells on a frosty Thanksgiving morning, as clear and true as a redbird's whistle; and it had tucked away in it a funny, throaty chuckle so irresistibly infectious that suspicious old St. Anthony himself, would have joined in accord with it, had he heard its silver echo in his wilderness. Berkeley Hayden's immortal soul stood on the tiptoe of ecstasy when Anne ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler

... June, 1895. An interesting old shop at the corner of Church Street was pulled down to make way for it. It contains all modern improvements, including electric light and cooking by gas. There is an isolation ward for any infectious illness which may break out, and two large, bright wards for the ordinary patients. The walls of these are lined with glazed bricks and tiles, and one of the wards contains large tile-work pictures representing well-known fairy tales. Boys are received up to the age of twelve, ...
— Mayfair, Belgravia, and Bayswater - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... sooner or later be found. Curiously enough most of the diseases in this last class and many of those in the first are contagious, while all that are caused by animal parasites are, as far as is known, infectious but not contagious. ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane

... yet; he does not know whether it is infectious or only epidemic; and when he heard how the dear boy had been for days past at the Exhibition at the town-hall, and drinking lots of iced water on Saturday, he seemed to think it quite accounted for. He says there is no reason that ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... presumption in me, to speak of the diseases of children, as this more properly belongs to the faculty; but let it be observed, that my pretension is not to cure the diseases that children are subject to, but only to prevent those which are infectious from spreading. I have found that children between the ages of two and seven years, are subject to the measles, hooping cough, fever, ophthalmia, ringworm, scald-head, and in very poor neighbourhoods, the itch—and small-pox. This last is very ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... have developed no instinctive fear which helps us to recognise the presence of infection. We take rational precautions against it when we recognise it, but the vast prevalence and mortality of consumption a generation or two ago was due to the fact that men did not recognise consumption as infectious; and many fine lives—Keats and Emily Bronte, to name but two—were sacrificed to careless proximity as well as to devoted tendance; but here nature, with all her instinct of self-preservation, did not hang out any danger signal, or provide human beings with ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson

... the great present, with life, not with death—to promote health, physical and moral, not to propagate infectious sickness. The present, wisely improved, leads to a happy future, and is the only road to that goal. We can not jump the present and its duties and reach the future so as to enjoy it, neither can the dead past lighten the ...
— The Philosophy of Teaching - The Teacher, The Pupil, The School • Nathaniel Sands

... that dreadful diseases of an infectious and malignant character break out on board these crowded ships, and multitudes sicken and die. Of course, under such circumstances, the sick can receive very few of the attentions that sick persons require, especially when the weather is stormy, ...
— Rollo in London • Jacob Abbott

... softly as if we had been engaged in a conspiracy, but she did not attempt to impose; I dare say, she asked me no more than she would have demanded of a Spaniard. The manners of people are certainly infectious; my spirits sunk in this town; and I wanted nothing but the language, and a long cloak, to make me a compleat Spaniard. Our inn was the Golden Fountain; and, considering it was in Spain, not a bad one. If the town, however, was gloomy, the ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse

... and the lieutenant's spirits rose, for he saw nothing to prevent the full success of the dream which had inspired and thrilled him so long. His buoyancy was infectious, and he brought a smile to the beauteous countenance by his merry sallies, and his picture of the happy future that was ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... to be born mad. Charles VI.'s insanity seemed to be infectious; the English invasion was followed by the pillage of France, the frenzied contest of the Bourguignons and the Armagnacs, by plagues and famines, and the overthrow at Agincourt; then came Charles VII., Joan of Arc, the deliverance and the healing of the land by the energetic ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... disease, probably a malignant form of typhus, bred of foul drainage, and cultivated as if in some satanic hot bed, until it had reached the perfection of its deadly growth, by its transmission from bodily frame to frame. It was terribly infectious, but what then? It had to be faced, and if one died of it, one ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... yawning is infectious, because the steams of the blood being ejected out of the mouth, doth infect the ambient air, which being received by the nostrils into another man's mouth, doth irritate the fibres of the hypogastric muscle to open the mouth to discharge by expiration the unfortunate ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 46, Saturday, September 14, 1850 • Various

... new tragedy. He had as yet barely grasped the truth of his son-in-law's end, and still often found himself expecting Tom's footfall and his jolly voice. That such an abundant vitality was stilled, that such an infectious laugh would never sound again on mortal ear he yet sometimes found it ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts

... you stop her going to the far end of the island?" said Frank, "if she thought there was an infectious fever for Mr. Pennefather ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham

... hardly think Mr. Thurston would agree with you. For instance?" asked Millicent, finding his humor infectious, for English Jim could gather all the men in camp about him, when half in jest and half in earnest he began one of ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... she stepped several times to her daughter's room and looked in, only to meet Reuther's unquiet eye turned towards hers in silent inquiry. Was her own uneasiness infectious? Was the child determined to share her vigil? She would wait a little longer ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green

... "money kept longer than three days stinks." So he made use of it while it was fresh. A good part he drank away (for he was an excellent toss-pot), some he gave away, the rest he threw away, literally tossing and hurling it violently from him—as boys do burrs, or as if it had been infectious,—into ponds, or ditches, or deep holes,—inscrutable cavities of the earth;—or he would bury it (where he would never seek it again) by a river's side under some bank, which (he would facetiously observe) paid no interest—but out away from him it must go ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... tempered groom, availing himself of the impatience of a thirsty horse, now turned his about, at once spurring and reining him in, which made him lash out his heels at the intruders near him. The other steeds seemed to catch this infectious restiveness, and the beggars were driven to a safer distance. Their horses now could drink in peace of the water stirred up and muddied by their mendicant friends, whom they presently left behind them, without further heeding their continued and vociferous appeals. One stout ragged ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen

... infectious, and Sarah turned to her visitor with an amused smile. 'Why, what can you find to enjoy already?' she asked, with some reason, for they were going almost at walking pace through the town, because of the crowds that ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin



Words linked to "Infectious" :   infectious agent, contractable, infectious mononucleosis, catching, infectious disease, transmittable, infective, contaminating, infectious polyneuritis



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