Infective

//ɪnˈfɛktɪv// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A person who is capable of spreading a disease by infecting others.

    "It is evident that the greater the number of susceptibles, then the greater the increase in the number of infectives."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Able to cause infection; infectious

    "Hirsch has followed a group of 85 health care workers who were exposed to blood and bodily fluids of persons with AIDS. Thirty had been exposed by accidentally sticking themselves with needles containing blood and three had been spattered or had an open wound exposed to potentially infective blood."

Adjective
  1. 1
    able to cause disease wordnet
  2. 2
    caused by infection or capable of causing infection wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
catchingcommunicablecontagiousdeadlydestructiveendemic

Example

More examples

"Some hospitals have special rooms to treat patients with highly infective diseases."

Etymology

From infect + -ive.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.