anthrax
noun
Simple meaning
A highly infectious animal disease.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
anthraksSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈænθɹæks
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The human disease that can occur in humans through contact with infected herbivores, tissue from infected animals, or high concentrations of anthrax spores, but is not usually spread between humans, with symptoms including lesions on the skin or in the lungs, often fatal.
pathology
A highly infectious animal disease (especially cattle and sheep); it can be transmitted to people
pathology
An acute infectious disease of herbivores, especially sheep and cattle, caused by Bacillus anthracis.
A disease of humans that is not communicable; caused by infection with Bacillus anthracis followed by septicemia
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: The human disease that can occur in humans through contact with infected herbivores, tissue from infected animals, or high concentrations of anthrax spores, but is not usually spread between humans, with symptoms including lesions on the skin or in the lungs, often fatal.
Used this way, anthrax is a reasonably familiar word with a faintly unfavourable edge. It turns up most in medicine or healthcare contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Medicine/healthcare
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A species of bacillus that causes anthrax in humans and in animals (cattle and swine and sheep and rabbits and mice and guinea pigs).
A form of anthrax infection acquired by inhalation of dust containing Bacillus anthracis.
A form of anthrax infection that begins as papule that becomes a vesicle and breaks with a discharge of toxins.
A form of anthrax infection acquired by inhalation of dust containing Bacillus anthracis.
A form of anthrax infection acquired by inhalation of dust containing Bacillus anthracis.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.