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Glite Dictionary
xenodiagnosis

xenodiagnosis

1 9.9
A way to find infection by putting a person's blood into a healthy animal to see if it becomes sick
  • noun
  • /ˌzɛnəˌdaɪəɡˈnoʊsɪs/
  • Specialized
: xenodiagnosis
  • In rare cases, xenodiagnosis is used when standard diagnostic tests are inconclusive.

Examples

  • The doctor recommended xenodiagnosis for accurate results.

  • Researchers rely on xenodiagnosis to study certain infectious diseases in controlled environments.

  • The laboratory performed xenodiagnosis to confirm the presence of the parasite in the blood sample.

  • Have you heard about xenodiagnosis?

  • The researchers conducted a xenodiagnosis experiment to determine if the patient had contracted the disease by observing the test animal.

  • He explained that xenodiagnosis involves transferring samples from patients to animals to see if any infections develop in the latter.

  • After the xenodiagnosis was performed, the scientists monitored the animal closely for signs of illness.

Surface Forms

xenodiagnosis singular
xenodiagnoses plural

Morphology

xenodiagnosis = diagnosis (semi-transparent) = xeno + diagnosis

The element 'diagnosis' is clear, but 'xeno-' is a technical combining form meaning 'foreign' that is not familiar to average B1 learners, so the overall formation is only partially transparent.

Etymology

Xenodiagnosis comes from the Greek parts xeno- meaning 'foreign' and diagnosis meaning 'to find out what is wrong'. So xenodiagnosis is a test that finds disease by using a 'foreign' animal or organism to see if it becomes infected.