Superspreader

Quick meaning: Superspreader is a noun meaning A person infected with a pathogen who is responsible for spreading it to many other people.

Meaning

A person infected with a pathogen who is responsible for spreading it to many other people.

More Meanings

1. An event or place which leads to the spread of an infectious disease to many people.
2. (by extension) A person or thing responsible for the widespread distribution of something regarded as dangerous or undesirable (for example, misinformation).

Example Sentences

It [the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference] will be the largest summit ever hosted in Britain. Organizers are scrambling to make sure the conference does not morph into a superspreader event.

As school districts around the U.S. continue to grapple with whether to reopen classrooms amid the coronavirus pandemic, data shows Florida started in-person learning without turning schools into superspreaders.

A major concern is that with both SARS and MERS [Middle East respiratory syndrome], a few patients inexplicably became "superspreaders" who infected huge numbers of other people. At a hospital in Seoul, South Korea, in 2015, one man with MERS transmitted it to 82 patients.

[S]cientists have learned a lot about airborne respiratory fluids and, in particular, what might make someone a superspreader, or superemitter. Certain attributes, such as the shape of one’s body, and certain behaviours, such as loud talking or breathing fast, appear to have a major role in spreading the disease.

Word Forms

• superspreaders
• super-spreader
• super spreader

Synonyms for superspreader

Depending on context, synonyms include superinfector.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include superspreading, infective, spillover, spillback, transvector, epidemicity.

Related Dictionary Tools