Definition of "pneumococcus" []

• A nonmotile, gram-positive bacterium (Streptococcus pneumoniae) that is the most common cause of bacterial pneumonia, associated with meningitis and other infectious diseases. (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.

• "Protection against pneumococcus is mediated by antibodies directed against the pneumococcal polysaccharide."
• "(link) One pneumococcus is enough to spoil a party, alas."
• "By studying the lungs of 77 patients that died from confirmed H1N1 flu, they were able to document the involvement of bacteria from 29% of the patients, and one bacterium, called pneumococcus, was responsible for almost half of the bacterial infections."