tobacco mosaic virus
- noun
- /təˈbækoʊ moʊˈzeɪɪk ˈvaɪrəs/
- Specialized
:
virus del mosaico del tabaco
- PHOTO (COLOR): Technician Catherine Corr compares a healthy tomato plant (left) to one infected by tobacco mosaic virus (right).
Examples
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The tobacco mosaic virus caused the leaves of the infected plants to show distinctive mottled patterns.
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It has successfully stopped the tobacco mosaic virus by surrounding the virus with dead cells.
Academic text (1995) -
But if the tobacco plant contracts tobacco mosaic virus, that is the host that can then transmit that to the tomato plant.
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We contrast the formation of an eye with the formation of vesicles within the cytosol or the coat of the tobacco mosaic virus.
Academic text (2010) -
Photo (color): Molecular biologist S.P. Dinesh-Kumar views the DNA sequence of a newly discovered gene that may enable many plants to resist tobacco mosaic virus.
Academic text (1995) -
Researchers are studying the tobacco mosaic virus to understand how it spreads among different crop species.
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When plants are infected with the tobacco mosaic virus, their growth is often stunted and the leaves turn yellow.
Synonyms
1
7.6
A virus that infects tobacco and other plants
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is fully compositional: 'tobacco' names the host plant, 'mosaic' describes the characteristic leaf mottling, and 'virus' identifies the pathogen, so a learner who knows those words can infer it denotes a virus that causes mosaic-like symptoms in tobacco (and similar plants). This follows standard modifier+noun composition and is cross-linguistically transparent, even if the term is more technical than everyday vocabulary.
Etymology
The name tobacco mosaic virus comes from the way it makes tobacco leaves look like a mosaic, a 'patchy' pattern of light and dark. So today tobacco mosaic virus means the small virus that infects those plants and makes that patchy leaf pattern.