Mining OED for Multiple Definitions of a Word
Many of us arrive in college thinking that there is only one “right” definition for each word, and that the dictionary provides us with this “proper” definition. This is far from accurate.
Essay 2 asks you to play with multiple ways of defining and understanding the word “virus,” in light of your experiences during the 2019-2020 Covid pandemic. For this assignment I want us to take inspiration from Jesse McCarthy’s essay on the different meanings of the word “trap.” McCarthy turns early on in his text to the Oxford English Dictionary in order to locate interesting and obscure ideas relating to the meaning of his word of interest (“trap”). Similarly, I want us to “mine” (meaning “look for”) different definitions of the term “virus” from the OED
What I want you do is simple:
–Go to the OED (log in using your City Tech info)
–Find and copy in your response below two or more odd definitions related to the word “virus”
–Discuss anything unusual, interesting, funny, or otherwise bizarre that you notice about these different meanings related to “virus”—as well as any questions or points of confusion you experience in reviewing these meanings.
–Lastly, discuss how looking through the different definitions of the term virus has changed the way you think about this word—and, perhaps, the 2019-2020 pandemic.
I found some interesting and bizarre meanings that relates to the word “Virus”. The first one being Venom, This was the least bizarre out of the rest of the words. I get why this word would relate to viruses because they are both harmful things that could potentially kill us. The next word is Violent Animosity. This was my first time hearing this word and when I tried to look up the definition for it, nothing really showed up for this word. This word is very unusual and I was really confused when I saw this. Colloquial is the third word that I found and was also intrigued by this word. The definition of this word didn’t really seem to be related to viruses so it confused me when I saw this word on the list. How does this relate to the word virus ?. While looking at these definitions of the term virus it did change the way I think about the word, the words that were shown reminded me how vicious a virus is and that it can kill us. Coronavirus was also a big eye opener for me because it showed me how serious and dangerous a virus could be.
In the OED, I found interesting definition of the word virus that I would have ever even thought about such as “Venom (literal and figurative); esp. the venom secreted in the bite or sting of a snake, spider, etc.”, it also mentioned that it can mean “semen”. This was very weird to me because I never though of the word virus in those terms. I was though it was something that makes humans sick or a bug in a computer. I was very confused to why those definitions were there, due to the fact that venom and semen can not possible relate or define the word virus. How could this possible relate or even come close to the ” actual”meaning of virus? After reading these weird definitions it made me think that maybe people have different opinions and meaning of the pandemic that we are currently experiencing. We all had to make dramatic changes that could have effected their definition. Maybe some people view the pandemic as a cleansing, or a distraction from the bigger picture. Looking at the OED I realized that many people interpret meanings a different way or in their point of view .
In the OED, there wasn’t one definition of the word virus. There are different definitions and some of them were a little interesting to me such as ” Violent animosity; virulence. Obsolete. rare.” There was also a different definition for virus and it was ” Venom (literal and figurative); esp. the venom secreted in the bite or sting of a snake, spider, etc.” This was very surprising definitions which never came in to my mind. My definition of virus was bacteria or a sickness or an infection that can be transmitted. When I saw these definitions I was surprised and confused at some point. I said to myself venom and violent animosity can define this word or even come close to relate to it. For example Covid-19 is a virus which can transmitted by us humans. Going on the OED page made me realize there is more than one definition for each word.
I tried to find the definition of the world virus. When I found there are so many different definitions and some of them were interesting some of them were not. I chose one interesting which is called “ Venom” (literal and figurative) esp. The Venom secreted in the bite or sting of a snake, spider,etc. This was a very interesting definition for me which never came into my mind but it was also danger and harmful for humans. The next world is “Violent Animosity”. I tried to look up the definition for it because I am not familiar with this world. Finally I found some definitions but nothing related to viruses. When I saw these definitions I was really surprised and confused at some of the points. I was thinking, how does this relate to the world’s virus? When I closely looked at the definitions then I realized how dangerous a virus can be and how it can kill us.
There are a few different definitions when you search up the word “virus” on OED. One of the definitions is venom and it is explained as “the venom secreted in the bite or sting of a snake, spider, etc”. Another definition that stood out to me was virulence and it means the severity of harmfulness of a disease or poison. I find the that venom is unusual to relate to the word virus because I never looked at it that way. When I looked up the definition of virulence, it exactly relates to the worldwide pandemic that is occurring right now. When reviewing all the different definitions on OED, it made me realize that people interpret things in different ways. Maybe even different from the actual definition.
After searching up the word virus in OED, I found some different meanings that I never even thought of. The first word that caught my attention was obsolete. Virus usually means a deadly disease but obsolete means out of date. So I don’t get how these two words are connected. The second word that I saw on OED was venom. I see how venom and virus are similar because they are both deadly. Looking through these words changed the way I see the word virus because at first, I thought it has only two definitions. Now I noticed that a word can have many meanings depending on how you use it.
In the OED, I found several different meaning of virus. The one word I really surprise me is the word Venom, which describe as secreted in the bite or sting of a snake, spider, etc. It’s funny because this word remind me of the movie Venom from last year. Venom was bad news for most of the characters in the movie. It was poison and can kill your body if your body is not suitable. This “virus” word meaning has change for me after I found all those definition on OED. Much like COVID-19 or any other virus, we too lay waste to our host. Each and every day humanity wreaks havoc upon that which is responsible for giving us life, slashing, burning, and polluting all so that we can feel “successful” and provide for our own offspring in a way that is most immediately beneficial to us. This success, however, is not permanent, and like an unchecked virus we too will eventually, inevitably, kill our host. Unfortunately for us, while a virus has evolutionarily perfected the ability to jump from one host to another to continue on with its sequence of devastation, we humans are not quite there yet. From 2019 – 2020, our has changed to a different level because of this virus.
In the OED, I found several different meanings of virus. The one word that really surprises me is the word Venom, which is described as secreted in the bite or sting of a snake, spider, etc. It’s funny because this word reminds me of the movie Venom from last year. Venom was bad news for most of the characters in the movie. It was poison and can kill your body if your body is not suitable. This “virus” word meaning has changed for me after I found all those definitions on OED. Much like COVID-19 or any other virus, we too lay waste to our host. Each and every day humanity wreaks havoc upon that which is responsible for giving us life, slashing, burning, and polluting all so that we can feel “successful” and provide for our own offspring in a way that is most immediately beneficial to us. This success, however, is not permanent, and like an unchecked virus we too will eventually, inevitably, kill our host. Unfortunately for us, while a virus has evolutionarily perfected the ability to jump from one host to another to continue on with its sequence of devastation, we humans are not quite there yet. From 2019 – 2020, our has changed to a different level because of this virus.
In the OED, I found some definitions of the virus that seem interesting to me. There are the words that caught my attention such as Venom and it is explained as “ the venom secreted in the bite or sting of a snake, spider,etc”. I am wondering how this word relates to viruses? Another word is virulence and it means the severity of harmfulness of a disease or poison which relates to the word virus and we could also relate this to COVID-19 virus that we are currently experiencing. While looking at these definitions of the term virus it made me think that words have different meanings depending on us when we use or how we use them.