verb ·2 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb

1. 1
   (of the capsid shell) to dissociate from the viral core in the host cell cytoplasm intransitive

   "It takes only minutes, after entry into a cell, for a virus particle to uncoat."

2. 2
   To remove the viral capsid of a virus, leading to the release of the viral genomic nucleic acid. transitive

Example

More examples

"It takes only minutes, after entry into a cell, for a virus particle to uncoat."

Etymology

From un- + coat.

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