Other forms: infected, infects, infecting
To infect is to pass a disease to somebody, or to spread through them. Infect others, an infected wound, infect the whole file.
It is used of enthusiasm as well as illness, and infectious laughter is the friendly version of the same idea. In computing a virus infects a file, which is a metaphor that has been taken entirely literally for forty years.
1verbinfectTo pass a disease to somebody, or to spread through them.
“Wash your hands often so you don't infect other people with your cold.”
infect is a spreading.
Latin inficere means to dip in or taint — in plus facere, to make.
Proto-Indo-European
*dʰeh₁-
Latin
infectus
Middle French
infect
English, today
infect
Built from
From Middle French infect, from Latin infectus, perfect passive participle of inficiō (“dye, taint”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA