tobacco mosaic virus

noun

: a single-stranded RNA virus (species Tobacco mosaic virus of the genus Tobamovirus) that occurs worldwide and causes mosaic disease in plants (such as tobacco and tomato) especially of the nightshade family

Examples of tobacco mosaic virus in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
From the story of tobacco mosaic virus, which gave us the idea that something even smaller than bacteria could be a pathogen, to the discovery that the number of viruses in the ocean exceeds the number of stars in the universe by 7 orders of magnitude. The Intersection, Discover Magazine, 16 May 2011 That something, now called the tobacco mosaic virus, appears on this page (magnified and colorized). Jocelyn Rice, Discover Magazine, 19 Apr. 2010 But their pioneering work on tobacco mosaic virus opened the door to a century of research that has revealed a diverse range of viral structures and strategies for survival. Theresa MacHemer, Smithsonian Magazine, 24 Mar. 2020 Scientists were only first able to visualize a virus, the tobacco mosaic virus, after the 1931 invention of the electron microscope. Jonathan Runstadler, Scientific American, 11 Mar. 2018

Word History

First Known Use

1914, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of tobacco mosaic virus was in 1914

Dictionary Entries Near tobacco mosaic virus

Cite this Entry

“Tobacco mosaic virus.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tobacco%20mosaic%20virus. Accessed 21 Dec. 2024.

More from Merriam-Webster on tobacco mosaic virus

Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!