Definition of "virion" []

• A complete viral particle, consisting of RNA or DNA surrounded by a protein shell and constituting the infective form of a virus. (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.

• "However, Wollman understood that the bacteriophage particle, the virion, is not the direct descendant of the infecting particle."
• "Briefly, when a piece of a virus, called a virion, comes in contact with a cell it likes, it may attach to special landing sites on the surface of that cell."
• "Before a virus has entered a host cell, it is called a virion -- a package of viral genetic material."