patógeno

pathogen

noun pah-TOH-heh-noh Rare

Origin: Greek pathos (suffering) + genēs (producing)

Usage Note

Patógeno as a noun refers to any microorganism (virus, bacterium, fungus, parasite) that causes disease; as an adjective it means disease-causing (agente patógeno). The closely related patogénico is a longer adjective variant meaning the same thing. Learners should distinguish patógeno (the disease-causer) from infeccioso (the quality of being transmissible) — a pathogen can cause infection without always being highly contagious.

Examples

"El laboratorio identificó el patógeno responsable del brote."

Natural Translation

The laboratory identified the pathogen responsible for the outbreak.

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