virus [LME] A virus was originally the venom of a snake, and was an English borrowing of a Latin word meaning ‘slimy liquid’ or ‘poison’, that is also the source of virulent [LME]. Early medical practitioners used the word for a substance produced in the body as the result of disease. The modern meaning dates from the late 19th century. Norovirus gets its name from the first syllable of Norwalk, the town in Ohio where it was first isolated in 1968, and coronavirus [M20th] from the radiating receptors which appeared like a corona (see coronary) in early electron microscope images. The computer virus dates from the early 1970s.