Sense file
How the sense moved
The archive follows the dated record first, then reads the social or rhetorical pressure that hardened, softened, narrowed, or reversed the word.
Older meaning
Poison or slimy liquid.
Modern meaning
An infectious agent; also malicious software.
Research lens
The archive uses this entry as a compact map, not a complete monograph.
Meaning trail
Root
poison
An old harm word, not a lab term.
Scientific shift
infectious agent
Medicine stabilized the modern biological sense.
Now
pathogen or malware
Computing borrowed the contagion model.