Definition of "infection" []

• Invasion by and multiplication of pathogenic microorganisms in a bodily part or tissue, which may produce subsequent tissue injury and progress to overt disease through a variety of cellular or toxic mechanisms. (noun)
• An instance of being infected. (noun)
• An agent or a contaminated substance responsible for one's becoming infected. (noun)
• The pathological state resulting from having been infected. (noun)
• An infectious disease. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The word infection means different things to different people."
• "He tried to recall the word infection, chided himself for letting so crucial a term slip from his memory."
• "The reason the statistic is so stunning is because the figures used to determine the difference in infection rates uses a bizarrely low estimate of the percentage of the population covered by the term “men who have sex with men”."