How to Use infective in a Sentence

infective

adjective
  • The eggs can then mature into a form of the parasite that is infective.
    — Fox News, 11 June 2019
  • The list of diseases thought to be caused by infective organisms is growing by the day.
    — Sandy Bauers, Philly.com, 17 May 2018
  • Those larvae grow and molt in the fly's tissues before reaching an infective stage.
    — Beth Mole, Ars Technica, 6 Nov. 2019
  • Vaccines have been the big winners, but there were some gains for anti-infective therapies as well.
    — Peter Bak, STAT, 28 Apr. 2021
  • That infective ambiance might have been enough to propel a less pointed novel about pregnancy.
    — Talya Zax, Washington Post, 13 June 2023
  • The Kivu swarm, with its three new lineages of Ebola, may amount to about one or two quadrillion infective particles of the virus.
    — Richard Preston, The New Yorker, 7 Aug. 2019
  • The oral solution is an anti-infective used with pediatric patients.
    — Jen Christensen, CNN, 28 Oct. 2022
  • Handling of the raw fish can also deliver the infective larva to the intestinal system.
    — Rebecca Kreston, Discover Magazine, 27 Sep. 2011
  • Those infective eggs hatch larvae, the larvae pierce the intestinal wall, and these larvae mainline their way via the blood to the eyes and central nervous system.
    — Rebecca Kreston, Discover Magazine, 1 July 2015
  • To spread from one dog to another, the larvae have to develop to a specific infective stage inside the mosquito.
    — Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY, 15 June 2019
  • The chamomile has a relaxing effect as well as being an antiseptic (anti-infective).
    — Amber Smith, Discover Magazine, 17 Oct. 2022
  • The only way to interrupt the epidemics is to imagine that every single person, regardless of the test, can be infective.
    — Jason Horowitz, New York Times, 23 Mar. 2020
  • After dogs defecate in the pens, the hookworm eggs hatch, and the larvae eventually molt, reaching their infective stage within five to 10 days.
    — Bradley Van Paridon, Scientific American, 1 June 2023
  • Antibodies are powerful anti-infective treatments, but they are generally thought to work best at early stages of the disease.
    — Robert Langreth, Bloomberg.com, 14 Oct. 2020
  • Toxoplasmosis organisms need time after being passed in the cat’s feces to become infective.
    — Star Tribune, 6 Nov. 2020
  • By sowing the seeds of doubt and denial, anti-vaxxers could influence many people not to get a vaccine, allowing the virus to persist and be persistently infective.
    — Jonathan M. Berman, STAT, 9 Sep. 2020
  • The company is building technology to help discover anti-infective drugs.
    — Casey Ross, STAT, 10 Mar. 2022
  • As the membranes fuse, the virus releases its genes into the cell, which produces billions of copies of the virus; these viral particles in turn break out of the cell and spread to other cells, where the infective process repeats.
    — Scientific American, 12 May 2020
  • For preterm and sick babies, human milk — fortified with anti-infective and anti-inflammatory nutrients not found in formula — is an elixir.
    — Crocker Stephenson, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 11 Dec. 2017
  • But scientists hypothesize that a combination of habitat change, pesticide exposure and the emergence of infective chytrid fungus led to their demise.
    — Douglas Main, Scientific American, 13 Dec. 2012
  • Disease relies on a variety of pestiferous vectors for the transmission of infective bacteria.
    — Rebecca Kreston, Discover Magazine, 31 May 2016
  • Much as for antibiotics, the commercial market for anti-infective antibodies has essentially failed.
    — Laura Defrancesco, Scientific American, 6 Jan. 2022
  • Malaria is a serious disease transmitted through the bite of an infective female anopheline mosquito, according to the CDC.
    — Jane Onyanga-Omara Julius Lasin usa Today, USA TODAY, 27 June 2023
  • Coronaviruses in general rely on electrostatic interactions to assemble themselves into an infective form and attach to a host.
    — Eric Litke, USA TODAY, 30 May 2020
  • Some recruits were sent to Yerba Buena, but they were not allowed onto the island ferry until a topical anti-infective solution had been sprayed into the upper part of the throat behind the nose.
    — Mark Johnson, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 7 Mar. 2020
  • An animal virus or other infective agent could be transferred to humans, with potentially tragic results – not just for the person who received the organ but for other people, who could subsequently be infected.
    — Kyle Munkittrick, Discover Magazine, 26 Nov. 2010
  • Kerala's containment of the first wave also means a higher share of its population is without antibodies and therefore vulnerable to the highly-infective Delta variant, says John.
    — Biman Mukherji, Fortune, 10 Sep. 2021
  • Alternatively, if raccoons occupy chimneys, infective feces can settle within and around fireplaces, contaminating the home.
    — Rebecca Kreston, Discover Magazine, 29 Mar. 2012
  • Infected rodents don't last long in the presence of a cat and their consumption ultimately results in a bowel movement that contains thousands of microscopic oocysts, the parasite's infective stage, thus completing the cycle.
    — Author: Rick Sinnott, Alaska Dispatch News, 21 June 2017
  • Antimicrobial resistance — the process by which bacteria, fungi, and other microbes become immune to the effects of drugs designed to kill them — happens every time someone takes an antibiotic or other anti-infective drug.
    — Patrick Skerrett, STAT, 8 Apr. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'infective.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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