herpes
noun
Simple meaning
Any of the animal viruses that cause painful blisters on the skin.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
hurpeezSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈhɝpiz
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
medicine
Any of the animal viruses that cause painful blisters on the skin
medicine
Viral diseases causing eruptions of the skin or mucous membrane
medicine
A viral infection, caused by Human alphaherpesvirus 1 and Human alphaherpesvirus 2, marked by painful, watery blisters in the skin or in the mucous membranes or on the genitals.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Any of the animal viruses that cause painful blisters on the skin
Used this way, herpes is a specialist word with a clearly unfavourable pull. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Clinical and detached
Where it naturally appears
- Medicine/healthcare
- Science
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
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.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
An infection caused by herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) that is usually transmitted by sexual contact.
Caused by herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1).
An infection caused by the herpes simplex virus.
Common form of acute encephalitis caused by herpes simplex 1.
A herpes virus that affects the skin and nervous system.
A herpes virus that causes chickenpox and shingles.
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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.