Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various bacteria, especially a rod-shaped bacterium.
- noun Any of various rod-shaped, spore-forming, aerobic bacteria of the genus Bacillus that often occur in chains and include B. anthracis, the causative agent of anthrax.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In sponges, a microstrongyle; a form of spicule.
- noun In anatomy, a little rod or rod-like body, as one of the rods of the retina.
- noun An individual of the genus Bacillus.
- noun [capitalized] A so-called genus of the microscopical vegetable organisms known as bacteria, having the form of very slender straight filaments, short or of moderate length, and consisting of one or more elongated cylindrical joints.
- noun [capitalized] In entomology, a genus of orthopterous gressorial insects, of the family Phasmidæ, the walking-sticks.
- noun Medicine made up into a long round figure like a stick.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Biol.) A variety of bacterium; a microscopic, rod-shaped vegetable organism.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Any of various
rod -shaped ,spore -forming aerobic bacteria in thegenus Bacillus , some of which causedisease .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun aerobic rod-shaped spore-producing bacterium; often occurring in chainlike formations; found primarily in soil
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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For instance, the germ that causes typhoid fever is called the _bacillus typhosus_; that which causes tuberculosis is called the bacillus tuberculosis; while the germ of diphtheria known as the _Klebs-Loeffler bacillus_, after the two men who discovered it.
A Handbook of Health Woods Hutchinson 1896
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Which disease caused by a bacillus is abbreviated as "TB"?
August 2007 2007
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He finally concluded that the only remaining competitor for the distinction of causing the pestilence was a germ which he called bacillus x.
Manuscript Draft: Walter Reed: Doctor in Uniform, by Laura Wood, [19 -- ] 1943
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There still may be much about Cameron's Tory party that is deeply difficult to stomach, but ejecting a government that is corrupting the very well of democracy seems a perfectly good reason to put those reservations to one side and to remove this bacillus from the body politic.
Banana Republic News 2007
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There still may be much about Cameron's Tory party that is deeply difficult to stomach, but ejecting a government that is corrupting the very well of democracy seems a perfectly good reason to put those reservations to one side and to remove this bacillus from the body politic.
Archive 2007-10-21 2007
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It was emphasized there, in addition, that the bacillus is dependent on the living organism for its development and multiplication, and that hence tuberculous infection is derived primarily from the expectorations of consumptives, and that it can probably also be caused by cattle suffering from «pearl disease».
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When the anthrax bacillus is injected under the skin of sensitive animals, such as the rabbit or the guinea-pig, the microbe is found free in abundant fluid from which the white corpuscles are almost wholly absent.
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It has been known for a long time that the tubercle bacillus is rapidly destroyed in the soil.
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1952 - Presentation Speech 1964
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They did a quality check in the Slim-Fast factory and they found that they might have the presence of a bacteria called bacillus cereus.
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If the anthrax bacteria, known as bacillus anthraxious (ph), actually gets into the lungs, an inhaled anthrax infection might occur.
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