Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A disease caused by the protozoan Toxoplasma gondii, especially.
- noun A congenital disease characterized by lesions of the central nervous system that can cause blindness and brain damage.
- noun An acquired disease characterized by fever, swollen lymph nodes, and lesions in the liver, heart, lungs, and brain.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun a
parasitic disease caused by theparasite Toxoplasma gondii
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun infection caused by parasites transmitted to humans from infected cats; if contracted by a pregnant woman it can result in serious damage to the fetus
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word toxoplasmosis.
Examples
-
One way to prevent getting toxoplasmosis is to wash your hands frequently and to wash raw fruit and vegetables in a slight vinegar solution, both of which I do.
Gardens and Kittens with Recipe for Eggplant Kebab on Rosemary Skewers (Κεμπάμπ με Μελιτζάνες και Δενδρολίβανο) Laurie Constantino 2008
-
The disease caused by the parasite Toxoplasma gondii is called toxoplasmosis and has been linked to 'personality' changes in rats and mice.
-
Cat waste carries a disease, toxoplasmosis, which is harmless to most people but can be deadly to anyone with a compromised immune system.
"If You Choose, You Can Make Me Clean" Susan Palwick 2006
-
The disease caused by the parasite Toxoplasma gondii is called toxoplasmosis and has been linked to 'personality' changes in rats and mice.
-
The organism has long been known to cause toxoplasmosis, which is why pregnant women are told to stay away from litter boxes, and "in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, before good antiretroviral drugs were developed, it was to blame for the dementia that afflicted many patients."
Forbes.com: News Frederick E. Allen 2012
-
But, you know, the thing that comes to mind that I think most people might be familiar with is toxoplasmosis, which is - it's not a virus, it's a protozoan, but you know how they say pregnant women shouldn't clean their litter boxes, they should get somebody else to do it, and that's because they can pick this up from the litter box.
NPR Topics: News 2011
-
Someone with a toxoplasma infection, called toxoplasmosis, is more than twice as likely to develop schizophrenia, according to Yolken.
PhysOrg.com - latest science and technology news stories 2010
-
In collaboration with the laboratory of Penn biologist David Roos, PhD, the work was broadened to include Toxoplasma gondii, which causes a parasitic disease called toxoplasmosis, the leading cause of birth defects worldwide and harmful to people with compromised immune systems.
unknown title 2009
-
T. gondii infection causes a disease called toxoplasmosis that produces mild flu-like symptoms and only really threatens foetuses and those with weak immune systems.
-
Some of these diseases, such as toxoplasmosis and bartonella, or cat scratch disease, can also infect humans.
polymorph commented on the word toxoplasmosis
This fascinating disease was recently blamed in the news for turning women into sex kittens and men into alley cats.
The article made light of the feline terms for human behavior because the parasite normally infects mice and cats. It appears to also alter the behavior of infected mice. It is theorized that it triggers the release of dopamine in the mouse's brain when a mouse encounters the odor of a cat. Infected mice then will seek out such locations (which healthy mice avoid), presumably because the parasite wants to be eaten in order to complete it's cycle- the dopamine is a neurochemical carrot that counteracts the mouse's instinctive avoidance of cats.
April 16, 2007
patiomensch commented on the word toxoplasmosis
A character in Trainspotting dies from this, in combo with AIDS.
April 16, 2007