zymotic

English

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ζυμωτικός (zumōtikós, “causing fermentation”), from ζυμοῦν (zumoûn).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /zaɪˈmɒtɪk/

Adjective

zymotic (not comparable)

1. (pathology, now historical) Infectious, contagious, of diseases originally regarded as being caused by a process similar to fermentation.
   • 1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor‎^[1], volume 2, London: G. Newbold, page 395:

     […] these […] accounts by no means bear out the zymotic doctrine of the Board of Health as to the cause of cholera; for where the zymotic influences from the sewers were the worst, […] the cholera was the least destructive.

   • 1901 August 16, H. Watkins-Pitchford, “Horsesickness”, in The Agricultural Journal and Mining Record‎^[2], volume 4, number 12, page 354:

     The incidence of zymotic diseases upon any particular organ or set of organs, is, of course, well recognised; one recalls the nephritis of scarlatina, the endocarditis of rheumatism, gastritis of rabies, and—perhaps the most striking instance of the selective affinity of disease for specific local manifestation—the lesions of foot-and-mouth disease.

   • 1997, Roy Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, Folio Society, published 2016, page 394:

     Farr concluded that overcrowding was the main determinant of high mortality from what (following Liebig) he style ‘zymotic diseases’.

2. Of or causing fermentation.

Derived terms

• zymotically (adv)

Related terms

• zyme (n)
• zymosis (n)

References

• Zymotic disease on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “zymotic”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.