This week’s theme
This pandemic in five words

This week’s words
zoonosis
fomites
asymptomatic
Typhoid Mary
vaccinate

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(ay-simp-tuh-MAT-ik)

MEANING:

adjective: Not showing any symptoms of disease.

ETYMOLOGY:

From a- (not) + Latin symptoma (symptom), from Greek symptoma (occurrence), from sym- (together) + piptein (to fall). Ultimately from the Indo-European root pet- (to rush or fly), which also gave us appetite, feather, petition, compete, perpetual, propitious, appetence, lepidopterology, peripeteia, pinnate, petulant, and pteridology. Earliest documented use: 1932.

NOTES:

If you’re asymptomatic you don’t show any symptoms, but it’s still possible you are infected and can transmit the infection to others. That’s why it’s important to wear a mask.

USAGE:

“Greg is standing somewhat apart from the crowd. He tested positive for the disease earlier this week, and though he’s asymptomatic he’s come to observe the people he will soon be forced to join.”
Tony Burgess; The Bewdley Mayhem; ECW Press; 2014.

See more usage examples of asymptomatic in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: