Superbug

noun, slang

noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A strain of bacteria that is resistant to many antibiotics (e.g., MDR, XDR). informal

    "But now we’re seeing increasing numbers of superbugs that survive antibiotics. One of the best-known —[is] MRSA, a kind of staph infection [that]— kills about 18,000 Americans annually. That’s more than die of AIDS."

  2. 2
    a strain of pest accidentally imported into Florida from the Middle East then spread to California where it is a very serious pest feeding on almost all vegetable crops and poinsettias wordnet
  3. 3
    Any pathogen resistant to many, even all, of the biocides or other agents used to treat similar pathogens. informal
  4. 4
    a strain of bacteria that is resistant to all antibiotics wordnet
  5. 5
    An invasive insect, Bemisia tabaci, that is a major pest of vegetable crops, both directly and as a virus vector. US

Synonyms

All synonyms
bemisia tabacimdrpoinsettia strainsilverleaf whitefly

Example

More examples

"Gilmore said scientists are studying the pathogen's genes to identify targets for the development of new weapons to fight the superbug."

Etymology

From super- + bug.

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