browse words by letter
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
l
m
n
o
p
q
r
s
t
u
v
w
x
y
z
virus |
4 definitions found From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Virus \Vi"rus\, n. [L., a slimy liquid, a poisonous liquid, poison, stench; akin to Gr ? poison, Skr. visha. Cf {Wizen}, v. i.] 1. (Med.) a Contagious or poisonous matter, as of specific ulcers, the bite of snakes, etc.; -- applied to organic poisons. b The special contagion, inappreciable to the senses and acting in exceedingly minute quantities, by which a disease is introduced into the organism and maintained there Note: The specific virus of diseases is now regarded as a microscopic living vegetable organism which multiplies within the body, and either by its own action or by the associated development of a chemical poison, causes the phenomena of the special disease. 2. Fig.: Any morbid corrupting quality in intellectual or moral conditions; something that poisons the mind or the soul; as the virus of obscene books. From WordNet r 1.6 [wn]: virus n : ultramicroscopic infectious agent that replicates itself only within cells of living hosts; many are pathogenic From Jargon File (4.2.3, 23 NOV 2000) [jargon]: virus n. [from the obvious analogy with biological viruses, via SF] A cracker program that searches out other programs and `infects' them by embedding a copy of itself in them so that they become {Trojan horse}s. When these programs are executed, the embedded virus is executed too thus propagating the `infection'. This normally happens invisibly to the user. Unlike a {worm}, a virus cannot infect other computers without assistance. It is propagated by vectors such as humans trading programs with their friends (see {SEX}). The virus may do nothing but propagate itself and then allow the program to run normally. Usually, however, after propagating silently for a while it starts doing things like writing cute messages on the terminal or playing strange tricks with the display (some viruses include nice {display hack}s). Many nasty viruses, written by particularly perversely minded {cracker}s, do irreversible damage, like nuking all the user's files. In the 1990s, viruses became a serious problem, especially among Windows users; the lack of security on these machines enables viruses to spread easily, even infecting the operating system (Unix machines, by contrast, are immune to such attacks). The production of special anti-virus software has become an industry, and a number of exaggerated media reports have caused outbreaks of near hysteria among users; many {luser}s tend to blame _everything_ that doesn't work as they had expected on virus attacks. Accordingly, this sense of `virus' has passed not only into techspeak but into also popular usage (where it is often incorrectly used to denote a {worm} or even a {Trojan horse}). See {phage}; compare {back door}; see also {Unix conspiracy}. From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (13 Mar 01) [foldoc]: virus (By analogy with biological viruses, via SF) A {cracker} program that searches out other programs and infects" them by embedding a copy of itself in them so that they become {Trojan horse}s. When these programs are executed, the embedded virus is executed too thus propagating the "infection". This normally happens invisibly to the user. Unlike a {worm}, a virus cannot infect other computers without assistance. It is propagated by vectors such as humans trading programs with their friends (see {SEX}). The virus may do nothing but propagate itself and then allow the program to run normally. Usually, however, after propagating silently for a while it starts doing things like writing cute" messages on the terminal or playing strange tricks with the display (some viruses include {display hack}s). Many nasty viruses, written by particularly antisocial {cracker}s, do irreversible damage, like deleting all the user's files. In the 1990s, viruses have become a serious problem, especially among {IBM PC} and {Macintosh} users (the lack of security on these machines enables viruses to spread easily, even infecting the operating system). The production of special {antivirus software} has become an industry, and a number of exaggerated media reports have caused outbreaks of near hysteria among users; many {lusers} tend to blame *everything* that doesn't work as they had expected on virus attacks. Accordingly, this sense of virus" has passed into popular usage (where it is often incorrectly used to denote a {worm} or even a {Trojan horse}). See {boot virus}, {phage}. Compare {back door}. See also {Unix conspiracy}. [{Jargon File}] (1995-01-31)
more about virus
This work is licensed under a
