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virino

Syllabification: (vi·ri·no)
Pronunciation: /vīˈrēnō, və-/
Definition of virino

noun (plural virinos)

Microbiology
  • a hypothetical infectious particle postulated as the cause of scrapie, BSE, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, consisting of noncoding nucleic acid in a protective coat made from host cell proteins. Compare with prion2.

Origin:

1970s: from virus + the diminutive suffix -ino

virino in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of virino in the British & World English dictionary
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