Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An infectious particle, similar to but smaller than a virus, that consists solely of a strand of RNA and is capable of causing disease in plants.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun plant pathogens, of the order Viroidales, that consist of just a short section of RNA but without the protein coat typical of viruses
  • noun human pathogen, most notably hepatitis D.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the smallest of viruses; a plant virus with its RNA arranged in a circular chromosome without a protein coat

Etymologies

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Examples

  • "What we have here isn't an Andorian who's been infected by some alien virus's DNAwe have a viroid life-form that's absorbed an Andorian's genetic code for its own selective usage."

    Time's Enemy Graf, L. A. 1996

  • "You've got a shipload of viroid life-forms outside draining our power systems, and I've got a Trill symbiont in the infirmary who says it can help us."

    Time's Enemy Graf, L. A. 1996

  • Locking her arms around the doctor despite his indignant yelp, she whirled him away from the entrance and beyond the snaking grasp of one of the viroid creatures.

    Time's Enemy Graf, L. A. 1996

  • For the moment, symptomatic treatment was in order, then detailed analysis of the virus or viroid.

    Dark Mirror Diane Duane 1993

  • If you find so much as a pre-biotic spherule, a pseudo-membranous configuration, even a viroid aggregate, the show's off.

    THE WRATH OF KHAN VONDA N.McINTYRE 1990

  • If you find so much as a pre-biotic spherule, a pseudo-membranous configuration, even a viroid aggregate, the show's off.

    THE WRATH OF KHAN VONDA N.McINTYRE 1990

  • If you find so much as a pre-biotic spherule, a pseudo-membranous configuration, even a viroid aggregate, the show's off.

    THE WRATH OF KHAN VONDA N.McINTYRE 1990

  • If you find so much as a pre-biotic spherule, a pseudo-membranous configuration, even a viroid aggregate, the show's off.

    THE WRATH OF KHAN VONDA N.McINTYRE 1990

  • In fact, it turned out that a disease that had nearly wiped out the American mum industry in the mid-1950s had been caused by a viroid of their own.

    *Science* Blog Portal 2009

  • The enzymes use the viroid as a template to make a new viroid progeny.

    *Science* Blog Portal 2009

  • Such flattened circles have been seen before in the form of ‘viroids’, structures made of RNA that are similar to viruses, but much smaller.

    ‘Wildly weird’ RNA bits discovered infesting the microbes in our guts Saima Sidik 2024

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