bacillus

Learned borrowing from Latin bacillus (“little staff, wand”), diminutive of baculum (“stick, staff, walking stick”).

• IPA^(key): /bæˈsɪl.əs/

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bacillus (plural bacilli)

1. Any of various rod-shaped, spore-forming aerobic bacteria in the genus Bacillus, some of which cause disease.
   • 1895, H. G. Wells, The Stolen Bacillus:

     'This again,' said the Bacteriologist, slipping a glass slide under the microscope, 'is a preparation of the celebrated Bacillus of cholera - the cholera germ.'

   • 1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “(please specify the page)”, in The Poison Belt […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:

     "You will conceive a bunch of grapes," said he, "which are covered by some infinitesimal but noxious bacillus.

2. Any bacilliform (rod-shaped) bacterium.
3. (figurative, by extension) Something which spreads like bacterial infection.
   • 1934 [2018], Gottfried Haberler quoted in Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 71:

     The “bacillus of boom or depression,” he wrote, travels freely “from country to country.”

• subcalli

Diminutive of baculus (“staff, walking stick”).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /baˈkil.lus/, [bäˈkɪlːʲʊs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /baˈt͡ʃil.lus/, [bäˈt͡ʃilːus]

bacillus m (genitive bacillī); second declension

1. Alternative form of bacillum

Second-declension noun.

• French: bacille
• Galician: bacelo
• Russian: баци́лла f (bacílla)

• bacillus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• bacillus in Ramminger, Johann (2016 July 16 (last accessed)) Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700‎, pre-publication website, 2005-2016